Bizarro World

How Instant Karma's Gonna Getcha

Merl Squirrel was having a good day. He was supposed to be out hunting for food, but in his meanderings and daydreaming, happened upon a lovely old home in a centurion oak forest. He sees that the house has open eaves and climbs in to have a look around. Holy bonanza batman! The eaves go directly into a knee-wall, which goes directly into a human clothes closet! Delighted, Merl rushes to the nutbar and tells all his buddies about his new "find." He buys his buddies a round with the few tidbits he has found so far, and hangs all afternoon, drinking up his tidbits. Before it was totally dark, Merl, having spent all his tidbits on Nut brown ale, begrudgingly goes hunting for food. He is clearly pissed that his wife had so many kids. They had agreed to not have kids this year. They worked all summer and had all their stores packed away. They were completely ready for winter when Shirley announced she was knocked up. Now its nothing but mid-winter hunting for tidbits, when, dammit, they agreed to not have kids. Merl finds two acorns and knows that if he brings them home, Shirley Squirrel will make him relinquish at least one to their many children (as Merl 'forgot' to use condoms last fall). So, instead of going home, selfishly, Merl eats one acorn on the spot and carries the other acorn into his new hideout. He finds his way into the closet. "Ahhh, perfect, he thinks, "None of my ravenous children will find me here. I can enjoy my acorn in a heated house by myself. Now where shall I sit to dine on my prize acorn?"

The floor is drafty and cold, so Merl climbs up on the clothes bar but find the footing too smooth and has a hard time balancing. So he jumps onto the shoe locker and sits beside a well-loved pair of loafers. Meanwhile, back at the nest, poor Shirley looks at the clock, wondering where that no good bastard is. At the same time she worries, because he said he would bring back food. There isnt a thing in the pantry. She wonders if he is OK or has met the same fate as several other of his drinking buddies, rrrROADKILLlll. "Perish the thought, Shirley reasons, "he's smart and he's giving and he would do anything for the kids. He will find food for us. He's just a little late." She hums and comforts the children, knowing Merl will be home soon.

On the foot locker, Merl looks around. "Nice place" he thinks. "Maybe I will move the whole family in. No--Oh NO what was I thinking!? This can be my secret digs away from the bitch and the brats. I could even have a few buddies over, maybe a few chicks, or that tasty little chipmonk number I had dance for me at the nutbar... and as Merl continues to fantasize that he is da-man, he throws his arms up like Zorba the Greek and does a little dance upon the foot locker. But oops! Merl drops the acorn and it rolls deep into the toe of the well-loved loafers.

"Oh no you dont!" cries Merl and dives in after it to retrieve his hard-won prize. And this is where Instant Karma gets poor Merl. You see, the "owner" of the shoes has never worn socks with them. Since "Owner" forbade Tara to get rid of the smelly, disgusting, broken-down loafers, Tara put them as far toward the attic as she could, in an old foot locker. Whatever "Owner's" unnatural attachment to the loafers was, Tara didnt argue, but simply did what she thought was best. Now when poor Merl went loafer diving, he didnt anticipate asphyxiation, but that, unfortunately, is exactly what happened. As Merl shot toward the toe, he felt the air being sucked out of his lungs as if he had entered a portal to outer space. Fight as he may, Merl was overcome in milliseconds, and died, head stuck in the toxic abyss of the loafer.

Shirley, now unmistakably pissed, bursts in on the nutbar, only to find Merl's plastered friends, passed out, but no Merl. She shakes Earl, Merl's drinking buddy awake and demands to know where Merl is. Earl mumbles something and throws a paw toward the oak forest. "That Sonofabitch, Shirley hisses. "I dont like to go there at night. Too many owls live there." Shirley steals the tidbits out of Earl's pouch. "He's too soused to remember," she reasons, and her children get fed.

Now, the next morning, when Merl still does not return, Shirley finds Earl, decidely hungover, and tells him to go find that lazy, whoring bastard and bring him home. Earl gathers the buddies and they head off to the secret hideout, fearing that Merl was probably with that pretty young chipmonk that gave him a lapdance. They wend their way in and find Merl, stiff and dead with his head stuck in a smelly old loafer. "Pull him out! shouts Percy. "NO! No dont!" shouts Earl and blocks their way. "Something killed that stupid shithead and he wasnt supposed to be here anyway. I say we gnaw his body off and leave it in the road. As soon as a car runs him over, we can take Shirley over and show her that Merl is dog fodder now." The boys all agree, gnaw off Merl's body and carry him away. No one ever returns to the scene of the crime.

The following spring, Tara has the eaves closed on the charming old home, as she thought she'd heard a sort-of tap-dance, emanating from the knee-wall. She never checked on the old loafers and had forgotten all about them. So had the "Owner".

All was well until Tara began cleaning out closets for the move to Arkansas. She found the still-disgusting old loafers, having not seen them for years, and tossed them into a garbage box. But wait, something rolled out of one of the shoes. Tara picks up the strange, bone-colored object and realizes that it is the entire skull of a squirrel. It is complete with long, dark yellow incisors, and neat rows of molars in the back. No other bones. No fur, no feet...oh yes, there was a solitary acorn in the same loafer.