Mama & the Squirrel

My cousin Gary and I used to get into a lot of 'situations', mostly on account of our having too much time on our hands. Like the time we burnt a field one March, using trashed paper kites in the middle of a grass field(!) for a hot-dog roast. (HFD informed a terrified (MUCH younger) Ron that, no, we would NOT have to pay for the vacant lot).Aunt Claudine tore us up over that, but didn't tell my folks about it till years later. Or the time we made a deadly concoction of toadstools, mud, and Lord knows what else, strongly believing we could convice our cousin Terri Lynn (She was a GIRL, after all!) to consume this nasty looking mess. But one time I remember well was the time we happened across a 55 gallon cardboard barrel.... We got to studying this find, and decided there MUST be something interesting we can do with this thing... One of us (honestly, I don't remember which) came up with the idea of using a rat trap and some coat-hanger wire, with a squirrels' tail attached to one end of the wire. When the lid was removed, it looked like something had jumped out of the barrel right at you! Now we proceeded to bring our idea to fruition. After it was properly tested, I went inside and informed Mama that "Me and Gary have caught a squirrel!" "No ya'll didn't..." "Yes, we did! Come and take a look", said one of the co-conspiritors. "It's just a little one, so it can't jump out of this drum", said the other. Well, when Mama took the lid off and that rat-trap-coathanger-squirrel's tail contraption sprang right out at her, she jumped straight back, plumb out of her houseshoes!

We never got into trouble over that one; I guess Mama's have a sense of humor, too!