The Old Gray Squirrel

Chandler stops dead in his tracks, I keep walking and am jerked to an abrupt stop when I hit the end of the leash. It's another squirrel. I am sure they know that they are screwing with Chandler. They are just so sure that I can hold that leash. They skitter around on the ground, and up and down the trunks of trees, wiggling their bushy little tails. Well, they are right. Chandler will never catch them.

I actually live with a form of squirrel. He is a five foot, eleven inch, old gray squirrel. His name is Mark, and he squirrels away food, objects, magazines, just about anything you can imagine. It doesn't matter if he already has something, it is never enough. He is compelled to go out to the mall and buy more of what he already has. Last week I went through the entire kitchen, trying to compress it all into a more manageable place. I cleared the counters of all the crap Mark had stored there, and went through the cabinets tossing out cans of food that had expired half a decade ago. Despite tossing all that old canned food, it was remarkable how much was still there. No less than twenty five cans of tomato sauce, thirteen bottles of salad dressing, and fifteen bottles of barbeque sauce were in one of the cabinets. One good thing about going through all the cabinets, is that when I went shopping with Mark later in the day, I was able to stop him from buying at least half of the things he had on his list.
"But I need that for the Fourth of July cookout."
"Trust me, you have more than enough barbeque sauce at home."
"Okay, but what about that can of tomato sauce you put back on the shelf?"
"Same deal, you have plenty."
"Oh, I also need to get another bottle of vodka for the party."
"Maybe you should get two."