I foresee an epic battle in my neighborhood; a battle so fierce that King Arthur himself would applaud me for my ferociousness.
I suppose I never thought of an acorn as a bitter enemy, something I need to take up arms against, but those buggers are doing their damnedest to put me in a shallow grave...early.
Last night was my third night of restless sleep due to Mother Nature's little brown cap-wearing nuisances dropping on my roof, and I'm ready to declare war. I need my sleep or I'm going to be so cranky that Poseidon will lock me in the little people room. I don't like the little people room.
Maybe you are thinking, "The acorn is a small tree nut, how much noise can one actually make?" Perhaps I'm just being baby. No, I don't think so. An acorn or two plummeting to earth via my roof isn't such a big deal, but when a whole damn oak tree of acorns launch in one night, I'm thinking machine gun rounds couldn't be louder. Just as I start slipping into a deep REM sleep, "BAM!" another acorn lands on the roof.
I'm going to head off on a slightly different path now, because a buried memory just came back to haunt me...
Several years ago, in my early twenties, my downtown apartment building was shaped like a U, with a courtyard in the middle, and during the fall, it was such a gorgeous place to live. There was one particular week that I remember well. As I walked from my building to the street, nearly everyday for the entire week, I was pelted, in the head, with an acorn from a HUGE oak tree in the courtyard.
The first couple of times this pelting happened, I thought very little of it. The third day, I was irritated. I looked up and I saw several squirrels scurrying along the branches. Those little rats-with-tails were throwing acorns at me, on purpose.
Of course, I didn't really believe they were doing this to me intentionally, but now having seen the Geico commercial where the squirrels high-five each other when they cause near accidents, I'm not so sure.
Back to present day. I can't decide if the acorns are falling from the oaks onto the house naturally, or if the squirrels are helping them, and by "helping" I mean hurling them like Olympic discus throwers because of the anti-squirrel bird feeder in the backyard? Maybe I'm barking up the wrong tree (haha) with the acorn thing. Perhaps it is the squirrels we need to defend our kingdom against?
--Fortuitous Observer
