The gloom hanging over the meadow was palpable. It was the usual spring mix of clouds and rain but with the added barometric pressure of confusion, plus a light misting of depression. Even the rabbits were humping distractedly, keeping one ear cocked for any news from the front.
They were at war with bears. Or maybe they had been last week, but now they weren’t? It could possibly start up again at any moment, but no one knew why this what was happening or who was on which side. The bears were much larger than any of the animals in the meadow, and while their dispositions were usually fine, getting them mad seemed like a bad idea. The Weasel had plunged the meadow into chaos by insulting their ursine fishing skills and vowing to steal their salmon.
Now the Weasel was shouting about cow prostitutes at the non-bendy part of the river, saying no one had told him the bears would react with anger. The animals were confused by this statement and wondered whether they should be now be worried about sex worker bovines, until the blind woodchuck’s cousin Shirley figured out the weasel was talking about the straight part of the river called the Hor-muz.
“Oh, I get it,” said Steve the Iguana. “Cow prostitutes are Whore-Mooz!” They all got a chuckle out of the idiocy that was the Weasel, but they still didn’t know why they were supposed to be mad at bears.
The woodchuck was done with reality. She’d been hoping for an uneventful spring that would lead up to the emergence of the cicadas—her favorite summer treat!—but this war thing was pushing her over the edge. She couldn’t get the lyrics Bears? Bears are sweet! Besides you ever see a bear with forty-foot feet? out of her head. There really was a Sondheim song for everything.*
Nothing made sense anymore, but one thing was certain—her burrow needed a makeover. Between epic bouts of doomscrolling, she’d been spending most of her time watching HomeTown and had decided that wallpaper was the way to go. The dumpster behind Floor & Décor had magically produced a roll of a pale green print stamped with vines and huge pink peonies. Erin and Ben promised the Peel & Stick wallpaper would be the easiest home improvement ever. Enlisting the help of Shirley and Steve, she figured they would be done by lunch.
The first strip went up quickly; there was a lot of high-fiving, although the disparate size of their paws made it awkward. The problem started with the second piece, as the pattern edges did not match. Steve stood on the woodchuck’s shoulders, waiting for Shirley to remeasure and cut the wallpaper so he could paste it at the top. “Shirley, you’re wasting it!” shouted the woodchuck. “There won’t be enough —I don’t care if the flowers match.” Shirley kept measuring, ignoring her cousin and muttering, “Of course it has to match—were you born in a barn?” Which was a hurtful comment because the woodchuck, had, in fact, been born in a barn.
The second piece was finally ready, and Steve held the top in place as Shirley lined up the edges, which now matched perfectly. But the first strip suddenly rolled down to the ground, the adhesive side completely covered in soil. The inventors of Peel & Stick neglected to mention their product was not suitable for dirt walls.
Steve started screaming and jumped off the woodchuck’s shoulder. “There’s something hiding in there!” he shrieked. Two glowing eyes bored out from a small hole in the wall, and the woodchuck reached in and yanked out a terrified racoon who was cowering with his tiny paws over his crotch.
“Dude, whatever you were doing in there, stop it!” shouted the woodchuck. “It’s already too sticky in here!
The racoon tearfully explained he was hiding from that crazy Rhino from Kentucky who had been spotted in the area. “He decapitated a whale and now he wants my penis!” sobbed the racoon. “He dumped a bear carcass in the park!”
“Is that why we’re at war with them?” asked Steve.
“You know,” said Shirley thoughtfully, “there was an online survey about whether you would rather meet a human man or a bear in the forest, and the majority of responders said definitely a bear.”
The animals all nodded. Although the bears had a tendency to hog the dumpster when something delicious was thrown away, none of them had a quarrel with the huge beasts. This made the war so infuriating—had the weasel never heard the term Don’t Poke the Bear?
The racoon calmed down and offered to help with the wallpaper. “Only after you’ve washed your paws,” said the woodchuck, grimacing. The unlikely team discovered if they pushed small sticks through the top of each strip into the dirt, the panel stayed in place. Shirley doubted this solution was going work for long but kept it to herself. After a long afternoon that involved a lot of swearing, the decorators stood back to admire their work—the entire burrow wall covered in a breathtaking riot of color and nature.
“Excuse me?” The four animals turned in unison to see the head of a giant bear poking upside down into the burrow. “Are the cow prostitutes in here? Not that I want to do anything with them,” he added hurriedly. “I’m just curious.” Frozen, the iguana, raccoon and two woodchucks silently shook their heads; the bear waved and left.
Some days it felt like the entire meadow had lost its mind, thought the woodchuck. But at least the wallpaper looked great!
She turned to see that all but one of the panels had fallen to the dirt floor.
• • •
Today is May 1 —a Day of Economic Blackout and Strike, so I hope you are somewhere reading columns about woodchucks and
not spending any money or going to work.
(Local shops are okay, but try to use cash to pay. The Man owns all the credit cards!)
*Into the Woods—”The Witch’s Rap”
• • •
The woodchuck has a new burrow! You can still hang around here with the other woodland animals, but the iguanas and the platypus have moved over to Substack, where they hope to reach millions of new readers and possibly amass a fortune in cicadas! Look for her at The Blind Woodchuck on Substack.
theblindwoodchuck.com 