I was visiting my in-laws in South Carolina. Outside their dining room window there are several bird feeders my mother-in-law Karen keeps well stocked. She enjoys watching the birds. She does not enjoy watching the squirrels eat all the bird food. There are like four bird feeders, and all of them came advertised as "squirrel proof." Dirty lies.
By the window she keeps a daisy pump action BB gun. She uses it to scare off the squirrels. She'll crack open the window and pop off a shot. The squirrels will scatter, but they always end up coming back.
I thought it would be fun to shoot one of the squirrels. Karen assured me the BB gun didn't hurt the squirrels, that it would just startle them and get them away from the bird feeders. I cracked the window, aimed at a squirrel greedily filling his face with sunflower seeds three feet away, and pulled the trigger.
My mother in law does not know how to use her Daisy BB gun. She never had one as a kid growing up. She never learned that you need to have the safety on when you loaded the BB's in and cock the gun, otherwise they don't go into the chamber. She had never actually fired a BB at any of the squirrels.
I nailed the sucker. Pow. It fell to the ground and started squeaking. Oh god. It was terrible. It didn't stop. I felt sick. I didn't know what to do because I'm not a vet. I'm just a terrible person. I hoped it was just stunned and scared and that it would get better. I went outside picked it up in a grocery bag and moved it to the base of a tree because I thought that it would recover faster if it were in its natural environment. I went back inside and decided I would check on it again in 15 minutes.
Fifteen minutes later.
The squirrel was not getting better. It wasn't moving. It was just lying there, still at the base of the tree. I knew I had to man up and finish the job. I went back inside and got the BB gun. I apologized to the squirrel, put the the barrel an inch from terrified, little head, and shot him a second time.
Again, the squirrel did not die. Again, it started squeaking. A tiny bead a blood welled up on the side of his head. He squeaked. Squeak. Squeak. Squeak. Why are you shooting me? Squeak. I didn't know what to do. There was a cinder block nearby. I ran and grabbed it, held it over the squirrel, and dropped it.
So the ground by the tree is soft. There's grass and soil and it's not very hard. So if you drop a cinder block from about five feet above the ground onto the ground there's a lot of give. Like, enough give that if there were a squirrel between the ground and the cinder block, the squirrel would not be crushed to death. It would probably get a concussion or break multiple bones in its frail little body, but it wouldn't die. Squeak squeaksqueaksqueak "I'm sorry!" squeak squeaksqueak "Sorry!"
I picked up the cinder block again and threw it down this time, hoping my strength and gravity and the cinder block's mass would be enough to finally put this poor animal out of its misery. Squeak squeak squeak.
I'm on my knees. I'm raising the cinder block above my head and bringing it down again and again and I'm sorry God, I'm sorry squirrel, I'm sorry I'm sorry down, down, my hands covered in dirt and fur and blood, down, dead. No squeak.
I left the cinder block on top of the squirrel. Jennifer needed to go to Wal-Mart and I needed to go find a therapist who accepted walk-ins. We got home and Karen's dog had dug the squirrel out from under the cinder block and carried it back into the living room. Because it hadn't suffered enough indignity that day. I found the grocery bag I had used earlier, wrapped it up, and threw it away.
