A Beginner’s Guide to Arguing with Squirrels

Legal Squirrels and Other Neighborhood Calamities

Chapter One: In Which the Author Regrets Everything Immediately

Let’s begin with a simple fact: never argue with a squirrel.

This is not to say that squirrels are illogical. On the contrary, they are terrifyingly logical. In the same way that tax audits and wasps are logical — which is to say, they operate within a system of internal consistency that has absolutely nothing to do with fairness, empathy, or the Geneva Convention.

Squirrels argue the way squirrels do everything: at high speed, with great passion, and a total disregard for property rights.

And now, dear reader, you’re here. Which means you’re either:
a) Considering a spirited debate with a member of the Sciuridae family,
b) Currently in one,
or c) Reading this while your hands are bandaged and your front garden smolders.

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The Situation, Briefly

The trouble began — as many great and terrible disasters do — over a peanut.

Not just any peanut, of course. This was a particularly large, particularly shiny, possibly enchanted peanut discovered wedged between two paving stones in Mrs. Pilkington’s front path.

The problem was that Nigel, the gray squirrel, believed he’d found it first.
Horatio, the red squirrel, believed the peanut had called to him in a dream.
And Mrs. Pilkington, who simply wanted to get to the shop for milk, found herself in the midst of what small-claims court records would later describe as "a prolonged and emotionally charged interspecies mediation attempt."

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Enter the Narrator
(that’s me. Hello.)

My name is Leonard T. Blatterby. I’m an amateur nutrologist, certified small mammal interpreter, and part-time municipal fence painter. I once tried to run for local council on a platform of acorn-based economic reform. I received zero votes, but two squirrels followed me home and tried to marry my toaster. So you could say I’m respected in some circles.

I was called in as an arbiter after the Council of Squirrels determined that their own judicial system had become “too tail-biased.” This is not a metaphor. They literally count tail flicks in lieu of testimony, which makes trials look like interpretive dance choreographed by caffeine addicts.

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Chapter One-and-a-Bit: The Chittering Begins

The scene was set: the peanut, gleaming like an ancient treasure beneath a daffodil.
Nigel on the left — lean, twitchy, wearing a bark-chip monocle.
Horatio on the right — scruffy, intense, muttering about prophecy.
Mrs. Pilkington, behind them, shouting “GET OFF MY DRIVEWAY YOU BLOODY TREE RATS!”

I opened my handbook: “So You’ve Been Asked to Mediate a Squirrel Dispute.”
Chapter One was titled: “You Fool.”

I cleared my throat.

“Gentlesquirrels,” I said. “Shall we begin with opening statements?”

Nigel immediately launched into a thirty-two-squeak argument involving property law, the squirrel equivalent of eminent domain, and a clause from the 1789 Nut Act. Horatio responded by attempting to summon the Peanut Spirit using interpretive tail gestures and a small kazoo.

At this point, I should note that squirrel mediation is legally binding only if witnessed by a minimum of five finches and one confused hedgehog. We had three and a hedgehog named Alan who kept muttering, “I came for the cat food, I’m not qualified for this.”

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Custody, Clarity, and Chaos

After an hour of increasingly aggressive tail flicks, Nigel proposed joint custody. Horatio rejected this on religious grounds, stating that the Peanut had “chosen him in sacred nutimony” and would “suffer no division.”

The Peanut, for its part, remained silent. But I swear it was enjoying itself.

Attempts at compromise were tragically unsuccessful. We extended generous olive branches, including a rotational burrow-sharing schedule modeled after international space station protocols, an ambitious acorn-and-peanut time-share initiative complete with color-coded nut calendars, and even the appointment of a neutral possum trustee—Stanley, who passed a rigorous sniff-test background check and once mediated a squirrel–raccoon standoff over compost rights. Alas, all proposals were met with tail flicks, aggressive chittering, and one particularly pointed pinecone flung with unambiguous disdain.

Horatio began flinging pinecones. Nigel retaliated with a legal scroll written in squirrel pee.

Mrs. Pilkington came out with a broom and made three firm points about the sanctity of private property. These were ignored.

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And Then Things Got Stupid

It was around this point that the Crows arrived.

Now, crows are the aristocrats of backyard politics. They wear the black robes of mourning for the death of common sense and speak in riddles just to confuse the pigeons. One of them — Sir Cawcaw the Third — offered to hold the peanut in escrow.

This was immediately accepted by no one and rejected by everyone.

Sensing an opportunity for drama, the neighborhood badger offered to duel Horatio for the peanut. No one invited the badger. The badger never waits for an invitation.

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Chapter One-Point-Six: The Philosophy of the Nut

Amid the chaos, I tried logic.

“Gentlesquirrels,” I said, wiping peanut goo off my clipboard, “surely there is more to life than this nut?”

Both squirrels stared at me. It was the kind of stare usually reserved for pigeons who forget how to pigeon mid-air.

Then Horatio said, and I quote:
"If the nut does not matter, then why does the world spin around it?"

Nigel nodded solemnly. “The nut is the axis of destiny.”

I wrote this down in my notes and drew a small diagram of a spinning peanut with sunglasses.

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The Escalation

Squirrels do not wage war. They skirmish dramatically.
It started with nut grenades — acorns filled with itching powder.
Then came the battle of the clothesline, where Nigel swung into combat using Mrs. Pilkington’s undergarments as ropes of war.

Horatio built a siege tower out of flowerpots and lawn gnomes.

The peanut was moved to a neutral flowerbed, guarded by a tabby cat named Mr. Pickles, who could not be bribed and answered only to tuna.

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The Resolution (Sort Of)

Eventually, the peanut vanished. No one saw who took it.

The squirrels blamed each other. The badger blamed capitalism.
The crows wrote a sonnet.
Mrs. Pilkington blamed me, and quite a lot of the fence I had just painted.
And Alan the hedgehog said, quite wisely, “Sometimes the nut is not the point.”

We stood in silence.

Then I noticed the smallest squirrel — a runt named Tibbles — sitting on the windowsill. He was eating the peanut with the slow reverence of a philosopher savouring a hard-won truth. Or possibly just a really good nut.

No one had the heart to stop him.

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Final Thoughts: So You Want to Argue with a Squirrel

Don’t.

But if you absolutely must:

• Bring snacks.

• Wear protective eyewear.

• Hire a translator — preferably one with a background in mime.

• Accept that it was never about logic. It was about feeling heard.

• And above all, never attempt to mediate a second dispute unless your will is up to date.

Especially if it involves chestnuts.
(Chestnuts are worse.)

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Appendix: Glossary of Common Squirrel Debate Terms

• Squeek-Skree-Chrrt — “I claim this nut by ancestral right and/or because I saw it first.”
  

• Skrit-skrit-chuuurk — “That is not even a peanut, it’s a pebble, you cretin.”
  

• Tail Flick x3 — “I am insulted.”
  

• Tail Flick x4 — “I am deeply insulted and will bite your face.”
  

• Tail Flick x5+ — “The squirrel code of honor demands a duel at dawn.”
  

• Lawn gnome fortification — A makeshift war bunker. Frequently collapses under dramatic monologue.
  
  

Author’s Note

This story started as an accident. Truly.

I was working on something entirely different — something that, at the time, felt more “serious” and “purposeful” — when I tossed out a few throwaway titles for comedic flavor. One of them was So You Want to Argue with a Squirrel or some such insanity. It was meant as a joke. A bit of absurd flair. Nothing more.

But then something strange happened.

One person said, “I’d read that.”
Then another.
Then a small avalanche of readers chimed in — all saying, in some form or another, that’s the story I want to hear. Enough that I started to worry. Enough that I started to wonder: Could I actually write this thing? Should I?

So I did.

I can’t promise this story makes sense. I can’t promise it follows a traditional arc or answers life’s deeper questions. But I can promise it’s exactly what the title says — and maybe, just maybe, a little more.

Good, bad, ridiculous — or, with any luck, delightfully all three — this is what happens when you listen to your readers, follow the nonsense, and commit to the bit.

And if nothing else, let it stand as proof: sometimes the best stories are the ones you never meant to write.

Especially if squirrels are involved.