Free Association

Entropy, as I understand it, is that natural tendency for things to go from bad to worse.

I keep a small number of semi-exotic succulents on an outdoor staircase and landing at my apartment in the East Bay. In the spring, I do a massive cleanup of sweeping, pruning and replanting, once the winter is past.

This spring, I no longer finished when as many as four squirrels moved in to the neighborhood.

Now, when I step outside every day, I see squirrel damage. I repot today, tomorrow, that pot might well be dug up. If not tomorrow, then within a week or so.

There is new damage Every. Single. Day.

Because, someone close by is feeding these squirrels peanuts.

So the squirrels have taken to burying the surplus peanuts in my pots. The irony of this is that I’m allergic to peanuts.

I spend 30 minutes cleaning up; a squirrel spends 5 minutes digging it all back up.

The entropy of the situation: whoever is feeding these squirrels is doing it at relatively speaking, zero cost. Just a few bucks for a bag of peanuts snatched from the aisle in passing at the grocery store. Then getting lots of jollies as the squirrels “visit” for their feeding. Poor squirrels. So hungry.

I could spend hours every week dealing with someone else’s single moment of peanut purchase.

It’s a game I don’t think I can win. Whoever is feeding these varmints, and certainly the varmints, have more time than I do. They can spend a little time to cost me a lot of time. Entropy is on their side.

The upshot: someone else’s few moments of jolliness is likely to cost me my stairscape. Something I have taken a lot of pleasure in, and cultivated over the last many years.

In another part of the country, this would not be an issue. It would be Mulligan stew. But this is California.