Copyright 1993(c)
                               DUH
                          By Lou Dillon
 
     I work at home and my office is a pleasant, relaxing room that
is filled with light - mostly because there are windows in every
conceivable spot, including the roof. I spend long hours laboring
on the computer and when I need to take a break I just sit and 
stare out one of the windows. 
     The view from my desk chair varies according to the seasons.
When winter comes the garden is bare and the picture presented by
nature is rather bleak. Staring at dead flowers and brown dirt 
does not have an invigorating effect on the creative process so,
I decided to liven up the landscape by feeding the local livestock. 
      I am fascinated by all living creatures, as long as they 
don't have more than four legs, and I have discovered through the
process of trial and error that squirrels prefer peanuts in the 
shell to peanut butter sandwiches. So, when I come into the office
in the morning I open the sliding glass doors and toss out a 
handful of nuts. They usually land on a stone walkway and when the
squirrels hear the sound of the peanuts hitting the rocks, they 
come running. 
     For a long time I thought I was feeding one squirrel but soon
discovered that they all look alike and that there were in fact two
of them. They just liked to dine separately. One squirrel (Pat) 
always visited early in the morning and the other one (Mike) came
in the afternoon. Their behavior was predictable. They either ate
the peanuts on the spot or buried them in my garden to be used as
a snack at some later date. After several weeks of watching these
squirrels store nuts among the dead flowers, I began to wonder if
I would have a bumper crop of goobers by next summer.  
     One morning, as I turned to look out the window, I discovered
the reason Pat and Mike never showed up at my house as a twosome. 
There, sitting in my garden, was a small, fat squirrel. Pat and 
Mike must have been taking turns baby sitting but now that the kid
was old enough, they had sent him to my house for breakfast. 
     For reasons which will soon become obvious I named this young
squirrel "Duh?". Duh was sitting in my yard trying to eat empty 
peanut shells. As I watched him pick up one empty shell after 
another I began to wonder about his IQ. Eventually he got tired of
spitting out shells and moved over to the walkway to look for food. 
His little nose began to twitch and he realized that breakfast was
about to be served. Unfortunately, he grabbed the first thing he
could get his hands on and stuffed it in his mouth. His look of 
surprise was followed by a projectile mouthful of ornamental 
landscaping stone. He reached for another "peanut" and discovered
that it too was fake. He tried a third time and delicately gnawed
for several seconds on a rock that was shaped suspiciously like a
peanut. Finally, depressed and despondent, Duh heaved a giant sigh
and glanced toward the garden. His nose began to twitch furiously
and he raced off toward the dead flowers.   
     He reached the garden and began to dig furiously. He had 
uncovered and eaten about half the peanuts his parents had stored
there when suddenly Pat came charging out of the bushes chattering
and scolding her way across my lawn. Apparently she had been 
camped nearby watching her offspring fail at his first attempt at
foraging. Duh took off like a bat out of... well, Pat surveyed the
damage and took off after him. 
     For the next week Pat and Mike showed up at their regular 
times but Duh was nowhere to be seen. I began to wonder if 
something had happened to him until finally, one morning, I looked
out the window and saw him. I guess Pat and Mike had decided the
kid had been "grounded" long enough because there was Duh sitting
on the walkway, in a pile of empty peanut shells, munching on rocks
for breakfast. 
                               END