"squirrel!"

We have an ornery squirrel who lives in the tree outside our back door. Sometimes he (she? nah.) will come down the tree when Marley's outside, and whip his tail and make that angry-squirrel kukking sound while standing just above the poor little pooch.

Other times he'll knock my plants off the deck.

He's not nice.

Today he was especially intrigued by a tub-shaped cooler that sits on our deck in the summer. The cooler was empty, but its lid was somewhat askew, and about a half inch of rainwater had collected in the bottom. It took me a while to figure out that squirrel was trying to get to the water, but his knocking the lid completely off was my first clue.

He then circled around the edge of the cooler a few times, studying the options for lowering himself down to the water. Eventually he figured out how to hold on to the edge with just his back feet and suspend himself down for a drink, which was both clever and impressive. He pulled himself back up, took a short rest, and did it again. This time his grip didn't hold, and he fell into the water. A blur of flailing legs and wet squirrel tail came flying back out.

I was watching through the window and laughed loud enough for him to hear me.