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In recent weeks, I’ve recieved email messages from several people with unusual names. Automate T. Patch dropped me a note, as did Swelterings B. Attributives, Laughingstock A. Fooleries, Impeaching H. Oddball, Normandy C. Naturalism, HotBabe4u, Lillian Vernon and Norm Thompson.

Some of these names are obvious fakes — Norm Thompson, for example — but I know for a fact that there is a person named Impeaching H. Oddball. He attended the University of Maine at Orono during the Fall semester of 1980. I know this because Impeaching Oddball was one of my college roommates.

Impeaching was a generally unremarkable person with one remarkable quirk — he ate potatoes morning, noon and night. I don’t mean that he ate potatoes with his baked bean breakfast burrito, and potatoes with his lobster roll, and potatoes with his savory mooseloaf pie. I mean, he ate nothing but potatoes. It’s a good thing he lived (and ate) before the invention of fad diets, because Atkins would have killed him dead.

My other roommate that semester was Lester “Littleneck” Biddeford Daigle III, better known to hip hop fans as LL Bean J. In 1978, Lester came to UMO to study Pulp and Paper Technology at the School of Forestry. In 1979, he took a year off to paint murals on subway cars in New York City. There, through a spray-painter friend, he met Hip Hop pioneer Kurtis Blow. Kurtis introduced Lester to rap music. Lester introduced Kurtis to the lobster salad roll. The rest is history.

Lester returned to UMO in 1980, but he never returned to his studies. Pine trees didn’t catch his eye anymore. He was all about the music. Between Labor Day and Thanksgiving, Lester sold all of his Kansas, Styx and Foghat records. After Thanksgiving break, he changed his name to LL Bean J and began to perform his “raps” at the Oronoka Restaurant’s Open Mic nights. These open sessions quickly became a regular gig, and in the Spring of 1981, LL released his seminal live set, Health Code Violations: Live at the Noka. Many of his platinum hits, such as What up Lobsta, Haddock and Bread Buffet, and Fear of a Plaid Planet can be traced to LL’s “Oronka period.”

Tragically, my friend and roommate didn’t live long enough to enjoy his success. LL Bean J, “the Down East Rapper,” was fatally injured while running with the moose at the Festival of Saint Bullwinkle in Pamplona, Maine. He died young, even for a rockstar, but at least he didn’t choke on his own vomit. That has to count for something.

I think I’ll add a period to the end of my name. That will really make a statement. It will look nice on the back of the jersey, too. Real nice. Sweet.

[Insert awkward pause here.]

Okay, okay, maybe adding a period to the end of my name won’t make a statement, but it will make a sentence. You’ve gotta give me that much. . . .

It won’t make a complete sentence, I admit, but how many people can say they have a sentence fragment for a last name? How ’bout a dependent clause? A phrase?

Maybe I need to think this through. We’ll talk later.

Best regards to all,
Mr. Squirrel.

Strange doings in the backyard this evening. I looked out the kitchen window just as seven squirrels walked by in a line. No lie.

When I say “line,” I don’t mean a conga line. Let’s be clear about that. This wasn’t as orderly as a conga line, and nobody was holding on to anyone else’s hips or saying “cha cha cha,” or any dumb-ass crap like that.

Come to think of it, it wasn’t very much like a line at all. It was more like a moving pile of jumping, rolling squirrel fun. I think they were playing rugby.

Ladies of the dance,

Welcome to the Squirrel’s Annoying Dance Party. I am the Squirrel, and I’ll be your annoying pest today. I’ll be your dance partner, too. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to make you more (or less) comfortable. Yes, anything. Go ahead, try me.

I told you I was annoying.

Would you like something from the bar, perhaps? A cocktail? A mocktail? A Squirreltail? A little drinkie winkie? No, nothing for me, thanks. I’m on the wagon. I only drink vodka.

Still not annoyed? That’s okay, we have plenty of time.

Would you like to dance? Would you like to bounce on the furniture with me.
(I prefer to dance while sitting.) Can I teach you the Rumble Seat Rumba? Oh, don’t be afraid — “Rumble Seat Rumba” is not a code phrase for a back-door sexual position. It is a only a dance . . . a dance characterized by sensual, provocative movements (from behind), Latin-style hip motion (grinding), and playful and flirtatious interplay (in the buff) between the squirrel and the lady. And you can do it while sitting (on me).

Perhaps we should make a movie. I’m a natural for the old bald squirrel role. You can play the pirate, or the devil girl, or the executive assistant. In Scene One we will order drinks. In Scene Two we will bounce on the furniture. In Scene Three, I’ll say, “There’s something in my pocket. Would you like to see it?” Yes, of course I have pockets.

Would you like to hear about Scene Four?

Surely, I must be annoying you now.

Few activities are as exhillerating as the drunken forest run — the night breeze blowing through your fur, the cool forest floor beneath your paws, the smiling cocktail waitress arriving with another round of drinks . . . look out for that branch!

Oh man, you’re gonna wake up with a shiner.

Bad news. According to my friends at Animal Planet, the squirrel is not at the top of the food chain. Apparently, the squirrel’s food chain position is somewhere between wire-gnawing engine mice and the humans who dine at the Hometown Buffet®.

(I told you it was bad news.)

So, what’s to be done? My friends, when faced with bad news, there’s only one thing that a reasonable rodent of lowly food chain position can do — start a bar fight. I would do this immediately if not for one little thing. My relatively short arms allow me to punch no higher than the average human shin, and while giving shin splints humans would be mighty satisfying, it would not improve my food chain position to any measurable degree.

At this time, I am willing to consider other suggestions.

I suppose I could skitter across the bar-top, knocking over plastic cups of Bud Light and angering burly landscapers, who are already pissed off because they’re in a bar drinking beer when they could be outside obstructing traffic with their lawn mowing equipment. That might help. Yes, I will make the drunken landscapers pay for my lower-than-desired food chain position. Landscapers are loud, lumbering oafs, and unlike their mowers, they do not have a zero turning radius. I can outmaneuver them. That will work to my advantage.

Thank you for helping me think this through.

One time, at a two-year-old’s birthday party, I picked up a Toxic Boy Squishy Toy, gave it a squeeze, and said without thinking, “My GOD, this feels exactly like a breast implant!”

That was inappropriate. Learn from my mistake.

Later, one of the kid’s parents tore the tip off of a party hat and used it as a beer funnel.

Then everyone sang and had cake.

My sister and I recently took our elderly mother to see some doctors at Big Hospital. Our first appointment was with Doctor Firstfloor, who did his thing and then sent us off to see Doctor Secondfloor. The trip upstairs went without a hitch, but on the way back we became disoriented by the bigness of Big Hospital, and we made several navigational errors. We turned left when we should have turned right and right when we should have turned left, and we found ourselves standing in front of elevators which looked exactly like the right elevators but weren’t. Once inside these decoy elevators, we made our situation worse by pressing the “1” button instead of the “M” button. (For reasons we still don’t fully understand, the first floor in Big Hospital is called M and the second floor is called 1.) There is a law of unintended consequences, my friends. When the decoy elevator doors opened, three bewildered Squirrels stepped directly into Big Hospital’s Inpatient Psychiatric Unit. My sister stopped and read the sign and laughed hysterically. I gave her a look and she covered her mouth with one hand. We tip-toed back into the decoy elevator, my sister pressed the wrong button again, and we rode back up to Floor 2 (which is two floors above the first floor).

We stepped off the elevator and the doors closed behind us. We wanted to be on the first floor (which is called M), but we were on the third floor (which is called 2). My sister pressed the elevator button again, and we all tried to look smart while we waited. When the doors opened, we hopped on. The elevator went up. This was a problem because up was exactly the wrong direction. After a brief side-trip to the 6th floor (which is called 7), we came right back to the third floor (which is called 2).

We are stubborn New England Yankees. We are ready and willing — eager, even — to repeat our mistakes endlessly. That’s why we got right back on the wrong damned elevator and pressed the wrong damned button, and when the wrong damned doors opened we stepped right back into the Inpatient Psychiatric Unit. My sister laughed hysterically. I said, “Okay, we surrender. Cuff us, nurse. Give us our pills.”

It could have ended badly, but it didn’t. My sister has lived outside of New England for a while, and in that time she has developed the ability to ask for directions under certain circumstances. The guy with the broom told us where we were going, and we went.

New York Yankees’ petulant third baseman Alex Rodriguez has been assimilated by my Squirrel Collective. He is currently undergoing a painful cybernetic Yankees-to-Red-Sox conversion procedure, after which he will join the Pawtucket Red Sox for a rehab assignment.

When cornered this morning in the Yankees player’s parking lot, Mr. Rodriquez offered little resistance to the squirrel-drone Assimilation Team. His girlish karate chops were easily neutralized. Perhaps, in this moment of profound confusion, Mr. Rodriquez believed he was defending himself against a harmless Bronson Arroyo sweep-tag at first base in game six of the 2004 American League Championship Series. If so, he was sadly mistaken. My drones are relentless and efficient fighting machines bent on assimilating all species, even Yankees. They are not pot-smoking, guitar-playing, hippie-type Red Sox pitchers. Assimilation is no game. Resistance is futile.

While we’re talking about resistance, I should mention one more thing. The acquisition of Mr. Rodriguez was so easy, the drones didn’t even get a chance to say, “resistance is futile.” This was very disappointing for them. Drones love saying, “resistance is futile.” In fact, it’s their favorite part of the entire acquisition/assimilation procedure. (It should be noted, however, that they also enjoy using their pointy cybernetic fingertips to inject nanoprobes into a prisoner’s delicate pink parts.)

Mr. Rodriguez’s painful cybernetic conversion is a six-step process. It will add several cosmetic enhancements and physical capabilities, which should make it easier for him to fit in with his new teammates. The six steps are as follows :

1. Extrusion and installation of prosthetic shoulder-length dreadlocks

2. Implantation of bleached blonde goatee hair plugs

3 Application of synthetic pine-tar over NY logo on batting helmet

4. Removal of top three buttonholes from baseball jersey. (This will allow the jersey to fall open and flap about in an untidy fashion.)

5. Name change from Alex Rodriguez to Locutus Rodriguez or “Lo-Rod.”

6. Installation of holographic eye replacement and forearm control unit, which will prevent subject from swinging at low-and-away sliders after an opposing pitcher busts him inside with several fast-balls.

Instructions for the movie of my life:

The “Bee Sting Sequence” should be shot in slow motion. Not only will this create a dreamy effect, but it will also accentuate the the fluid movements of the flailing arms and the rhythmic stomping of the feet. Tight camera shots of hands swatting legs (but missing bees) should be synced to Nikolay Rimsky-Korsakov’s The Flight of the Bumble Bee. The actor MUST NOT drop the weed whacker while running, but must swing it one-handed in wide sweeping arcs. One stunt bee will follow the actor into the house, up the stairs and into the bathroom, where the two will square off in a climactic man-against-bee showdown. This will be the payoff scene for the Me character, who will vanquish his venomous foe and narrowly avoid looking like a powerless victim of nature.

Cut to Benedryl scene.

P Diddy, who used to be Puff Daddy, who used to be Puffy D, who used to be Sean “Puffy” Combs, who used to be Sean Combs, is now just plain Diddy. He says the P was coming between him and his fans.

To this I say, Okay, Puffydoodle, if you need to be free of the P, then give that extra letter to me. I could use a little street cred. I only hope it does half as much for the Squirrelly as it did for the Diddy.

Dear fans, I hope this won’t come between us.

Yours truly,
Bad boy for life, P Squirrelly

While paddling around the tub on my Kon-Tiki ramen noodle raft, I crashed into a head of iceberg lettuce. This unfortunate event not only popped a few rivets on my unsinkable vessel, it also reminded me of my long-shelved side project, “Titanic on Ice.” As they say in show biz, the ice show must go on. Therefore, I am rolling up my sleeves and putting my nose to the grindstone, and I will not rest until I get this iceberg off the ground.

I see pouty former skating champion Nancy Kerrigan in the role of the H.M.S. Titanic, with Tonya Harding playing that pesky iceberg. I hope Tonya isn’t in jail right now, because the show can’t go on without her. I wrote the iceberg role for her. She IS the iceberg. There isn’t another actor in Hollywood, or skater in Canada, who can play opposite Nancy Kerrigan’s HMS Titanic, especially now that the NHL is back in business.

Wish me luck.

One day, my sister’s dog Jack brought home a section of the neighbor’s drainpipe. My sister found Jack in the back yard, swinging the drainpipe like a crazed Collie ninja. Sister yelled. Jack dropped the drainpipe and backed away. Next, my sister did what any reasonable person would do. She picked up the drainpipe and held to her eye like a telescope. And that’s how she found the neighbor’s chipmunk.

Co-worker Barb’s cat Henry is too lazy to kill small animals. He has only brought home one mouse ever, and that one was still in a mousetrap. Barb says she’s pretty sure that doesn’t count as a kill. When he can’t find pre-killed mice, Henry brings home dead pinecones.

On behalf of our client, Mr. Squirrel, who recently received one or more (1±) proposal(s) of marriage, we, the partners and associates of Squirrel, Squirrel, Chipmunk and Squirrel, have scratched together this very important, very expensive, and totally non-binding legal document. Please proceed to Paragraph Two now.

Before Mr. Squirrel will “say yes” to a proposal of marriage, the following conditions must be met:

1. Mr. Squirrel must know the bride.

2. The bride must agree to be female.

That’s all we have so far. More after our 10:00 brainstorming session.

One day, I was shooting the breeze with an eldery Squirrel family member. In the background, on television, three comedians were discussing a new show called Being Bobby Brown. The elderly Squirrel took note of this discussion and said, “Who the heck is Bobby Brown?”

“He’s and R&B singer,” I said.

“Eh?” said Elderly Squirrel.

“Remember New Edition?” I said.

“I’m old, but not old enough to remember prohibition,” said Elderly Squirrel.

“New Edition, not Prohibition,” I said.

“Oooooh, right, New Edition. Never heard of them.”

“Bobby Brown started a brawl at Disney World,” I said. “Nearly ripped a guy’s ear off.”

“I thought that was Mike Tyson.”

“He’s married to Whitney Houston?”

“Who, Mike Tyson?”

“No. Bobby Brown is married to Whitney Houston.”

“Oooooh, right. I knew that. So . . . who is Britney Houston?”

After reading the horoscopes in The Star this morning, I decided to move my birthday from November to January. I have two reasons for doing this:

1. Two birthdays in the transition year means double presents.

2. The move is a zodiac upgrade. Why should I settle for being a moody loner, when I could be an “intractable, contrary, and emotionally detached” moody loner?

Dear Abby,

I have a pair of evil socks. Whenever I wear them, something bad happens. The evil socks were a gift from a friend, so I feel obligated to wear them even though they will surely bring bad juju.

Please advise.

Mr. Squirrel,
Oak Tree, Connecticut

Co-op dwellers can’t deal with life in the wild.

Click here for the sad truth.

(link provided by cousin Bonnie.)

The establishment insists that I wear pants. I am oppressed. Are not all Americans entitled to life, liberty, and proper trouser ventilation? My blue jeans have a higher R-value than most polyurethane foam insulation products. My pencil-thin legs are currently throwing off enough heat to be considered alternative energy sources. Still, I must wear pants.

The employees at the nearby Mardi Gras Club have no such trouser ventilation restrictions. Mardi Gras dancers are not expected to wear pants. In fact, they are encouraged to remove their pants as often as possible. But I must wear pants.

There is no justice.

The house across the street once belonged to the O’Possum family. Danny O’Possum was the neighborhood cool kid. He wore John Lennon glasses with purple-tinted lenses, and he was the first kid in town to own a Janis Joplin lunch box. By the time Danny reached high school, he was already a mediocre drummer in a mediocre rock band. I looked up to the guy.

The O’Possum family had three cars, one of which never left the driveway. It was a puke-green 1964 Rambler Ambassador, and it sat in the same spot for years. Eventually the O’Possums got tired of looking at the puke-green Rambler and they buried it. They put the car in neutral and pushed it into a hole they dug beside the driveway. I don’t know why they did this. Maybe they couldn’t afford a tow.

Years passed. The O’Possums moved out of town. Danny was doing a lot of drugs by then, and his drumming was much improved. New people live in the old O’Possum place now. They’re the third family in the post-O’Possum era. The new people think they’re a two car family, but I know better.