Death bed confession: No matter what she does, no plant will grow in this garden plot
I’ve got a death bed. Note I’m not saying I’m on my deathbed. But I legit have a death bed and it’s a piece of dirt in front of my house that refuses to nurture anything that’s planted in its soil.
For more than 10 years I have struggled with this bed. I feel I’ve done everything in my power to persuade it to enthusiastically grow plants, trees or even, at this point, weeds. I’ve dug out the bed and have done what I would describe as a vigorous soil enrichment program, called in the professionals at some considerable expense and welcomed the input from neighbors who are perennial yard of the month winners.
All of this has resulted in a flower bed that still seems sad. There are signs of life, but anything planted in this bed looks like it’s not long for this world.
This has led me to engage in many theories. The most horrifying one is that the flower bed is cursed and I’m living in a haunted house. There was one time a couple of years ago when I actually thought my house was running an Airbnb for spirits beyond the realm.
Fortunately (or sadly, depending on your love of the supernatural), the spirits were squirrels. But in my defense these squirrels were highly intelligent and I think they got some devilish pleasure toying with my sanity.
Here’s a quick backstory — or I guess my opening argument — for the case of Sherry Kuehl vs. the Gaslighting Squirrels. I had started to hear what sounded like a human being with very long nails. In my mind they had to be stiletto nails — those nails that look like talons on the prehistoric dinosaur the Therizinosaurus — so I’m talking nails more than a foot long, trying to claw their way out of the walls into my closet.
The sound was so horrendously frightening that it totally freaked me out. But whenever I called my husband into the closet so he could hear and freak out with me, the sound stopped. It was like whatever beast was creating that sound was actively trying to not only make me think I was insane, but also convince my spouse that I was losing my mind.
To my husband’s credit he did offer up some lame reasoning that it was probably the wind and/or tree branches scraping the side of the house. Although this particular closet wasn’t located on the side of the house and there was no wind.
Finally, after a couple of days of traumatizing me — as in I wouldn’t go into my closet alone, lest this unknown spirit would come for my very soul — the squirrels lost their competitive edge and slipped up. They made the sound while my husband was in the closet and he got to experience the terror I had been living with.
His response wasn’t to scream out, “Oh my God, your closet is possessed by demon spirits from the underworld!” Instead he calmly issued the statement, “Yep we’ve got squirrels that have gotten in that wall. You need to call someone.”
It took a team of highly trained professionals (OK, two men who weren’t Ghostbusters) to coax the squirrels out and seal up the teeny tiny hole they were using as their gateway to my closet walls.
To this day, our yard is still thick with brazen squirrels and there are days I know they’re dissing me. It’s a look they throw my way. It’s a sideways glance of judgment — and I also think that death bed might be their fault. I’m sure they’re digging up the vegetation just to let me know who’s the yard boss.
Reach Sherry Kuehl at snarkyinthesuburbs@gmail.com, on Facebook at Snarky in the Suburbs, on Twitter at @snarkynsuburbs on Instagram @snarky.in.the.suburbs, and snarkyinthesuburbs.com.
