Pre-Posthumous Urban T**t (*) Zeitgeist Award

The observant among you will have noticed that I did not post Friday. I can explain: the dog ate my homework. Wait! I am the... oh, crap...

Actually, my reasons have to do with yesterday's state of high fuzzy-headedness. Thursday evening, whilst I was partaking of a postprandial aperitif, (often a blissful moment) the trouble began. Somewhere not unadjacent to the 'ol coyote den, a car with its antitheft alarum's sensors cranked to the max began to honk wildly at the transit of every squirrel - nay, every falling leaf. You know how many leafs are fallin' right now. It sounded like a freight train. Or a Buick.

I assumed some ass had parked and gone off to carouse on Elgin Street, and that all would be well in a few excruciating hours.

Wrong. All night, that horn fired off every five minutes. I then assumed that perhaps said ass had over-imbibed and taxied home. Still an ass, yet at least not endangering the public. But a quick stroll at eight-AM-ish Friday morning pinpointed the offending automobile - indeed a big honkin' new Buick - in a nearby residential driveway.

I contemplated this hyperactive excretion with an austere red eye. Well, two. As I did, a guy with an air of Steve Dallas about him stepped blithely from the porch with his Eddie Bean Insulated Travel Mug, Giant Squid Edition®, blipped the remote, climbed in, started up, and drove off.

I am grateful to Woodsy and Pandora for their thoughtful attempts to caffeinate my sleepless condition at a popular bean juice joint, later that day. They were well-intentioned and well-received.

Yet, maybe it's Seasonal Affective Disorder kicking in, but my ill humour remains. Steve: You are the lucky winner of coyote's Pre-Posthumous Urban T**t Zeitgeist (PPUTZ) Award. This means that I am bending my not-inconsiderable semimythical, totemic telekinetic powers to focus the universe's karma upon you. Kinda like a big psychic magnifying glass aiming the sun at your brain. Soon, your head will explode. All over your brand-new Buick's upholstery, I hope. Fair is fair.

* Toot. Twat. Take your pick...

Black and blue and squirrelly all over

I had a doctor's appointment over the lunch hour last week and, afterwards, decided to pop home for a moment.

I was distressed to find a rather large black squirrel lying quite dead in the middle of my winding driveway, just a few paces from the moat that surrounds the observatory.

Did I forget to pay the Italian taxes on ESI's global headquarters? I wondered. Is this how the good fathers of Tuscany remind Canadian residents their payments are overdue?

I fork over a lot of property taxes in this country, too.

Now is the chance, I thought, for the City of Ottawa to make up for its lacklustre, sporadic and altogether uninspired snow-removal efforts on my Centretown street.

After all, the squirrel, though on my driveway, was actually on city property, which extends several metres inward from the curb. And you can't be too careful, right? West Squirrel Virus may be running amok, infecting the downtown core.

I dialled 311 and after a little push-button menu-manoeuvring was duly assured a city roads crew would come pick up my ex-rodent friend. It was dark when I got home, so I didn't notice till the next day that someone, likely a neighbour, had simply moved the squirrel slightly to the right, atop a small stone ledge that borders my driveway.

Another call to the city. Yes, at this point I could have bagged the fluffy-tailed critter (sorry, Coyote) myself. But it was the principle of the thing. Again I was told the squirrel would be gone by day's end. No such luck.

Day Three: yet another call, and another promise. But as of suppertime Friday, my open-air squirrel cemetery was still thriving. Call four: I was told a supervisor would phone me shortly to advise when the road crew would arrive. An hour passed. Still nothing.

Finally, I walked outside with a plastic bag, grabbed a shovel and scooped the poor animal inside, then disposed of him as nobly as I could under the circumstances. Death is never pretty. And the whole thing made me a little sad.

I called the city for the fifth time. Don't bother coming, I said. It didn't seem right to make the squirrel, or me, wait any longer.

Photo: Squirrel, not exactly as illustrated.