Tuna Boy vs. The Nut Barer of Doom

I think the lizards and roaches have been talking about us. The Tuna family has become an enemy to the beasts of the bayou and they're starting to take their revenge.

The kids' new favorite afternoon pastime is to ride their bikes around the tree-lined lanes behind CB's house. The girl can now make it all the way around the quarter mile circle without her training wheels. And the boy pedals his heart out on his little 12" bike. I walk around the circle burning off some extra calories while they ride and everyone's happy.

Except for the squirrels.

They like to dart back and forth across the lane from tree to tree, avoiding the neighborhood kids but knocking acorns on their heads.

Until today, when a furry little dervish decided to cut across the road right behind little tuna boy's back tire.

Now I don't know if the boy's unfathomable speed tricked the squirrel, or if said squirrel had his sites on my son all along, but the little tree rat darted into the street just in time to jump through the bike's spinning back tire.

And get spun through the air by the spokes.

"Rrrrrrh!" he screeched, sounding eerily like a frightened cat.

Bits of gray fur and mangled nuts cart wheeled through the air and landed like cluster bombs on the gravel. But the squirrel landed on his two front feet and took off for the nearest tree like his tail was on fire.

And it might have been. I'm not sure. It's also possible that me screeching, "Oh my GOD!" scared him more than his impromptu flight.

And the Tuna Boy? Well, he just pedaled on like nothing happened.

It took me a few seconds to regain my breath and stop pumping adrenaline to every last point in my body. Then I yelled to my son, "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, Mommy!" he yelled back. "That squirrel ran into me, that's all."

Well, okay then. As long as nothing out of the ordinary happened.

The squirrels seemed to steer clear of us after that. But as the adults gathered to say goodnight, we kept gasping out little eeps and ows as we were pelted on the heads by acorn after acorn.

Those fluffy little tree rat shits. Don't they know that they're no match for a Tuna?