We are in full fledged rock phase.

They come from everywhere. Smooth, glittery, dirty, flat. In pockets of clothes, in pockets of bags, in piles in the middle of the walkway. Rocks for days. The one I was most overjoyed to see was in the middle of the upstairs landing floor, because at first I thought it was a tidy pile of poop. Rocks are preferable to poop, hands down.

Recently I was feeling so very tired, you know the kind when all your limbs are heavy? I was ponderously unloading the bag that holds my wallet, keys, and a recently abandoned knitting project which seemed heavier than I remembered it. And I pulled out not one but three small rocks from the bag. Well that explains it, I thought, and then a few moments later proceeded to extract the mother of all landscaping stones, the size of a softball – I think.  I’ve never played an organized sport. I have no idea when it was sneaked into my bag, but boy I must be really tired to begin with to not have noticed.

Every rock is a treasure, until it is abandoned somewhere inconvenient for grownups. But these hunks of earth regain their value the moment said grownup makes a move to return the rock to a more appropriate habitat. I have taken to standing at the back door after the bedtime battle has been scrappily won and cathartically hurling them as hard as I can into the yard, even though I know it means I will end up being surprised by them later and need to collect and displace them again. If I didn’t throw like…well, like someone who never played any organized sport and only rues it in moments such as these, I could use the projectile rocks to perhaps dispatch our fat groundhog who has just emerged from his long wintry snooze, a sleep fueled entirely by the globulous fat cells rendered from his feasting on our garden plants all last season.

I called the city about our groundhog recently, because I heard they have traps you can borrow, which their website page “Living with Wildlife/Nuisance Wildlife” explains in great detail. It says to call Animal Control and ask to borrow a trap for up to two weeks, and then has a list of fourteen (14!) rules and restrictions for when and how to use the traps. For example:

1. No trapping is allowed on weekends or holidays

Then the page ends with the following admonishment, italics mine:

It’s important to remember that live trapping wild animals only temporarily solves a problem… There are many cities as large or larger than Pittsburgh with about the same wild animal population that do not allow their residents to live-trap any wild animals. These city residents have learned how to live with the wild animals in their respective cities.

I just don’t know that they have, but who am I to argue with Animal Control? As evidenced by the following conversation I had when I called the number to get on the waiting list, which I assumed was so long that we would probably end up buying a $60 groundhog trap online anyway:

“Animal control.”
“Hello, I’d like to get on the waiting list for a groundhog trap.”
“Ummmmm, I dunno… I’m not sure if they’re still doin’… yeah, I don’t know if you can… hang on, I think Bill’s still here…”
[some time passes]
“Are you the lady who called about the groundhog?”
“Yes! That’s me! I need a groundhog trap, is the list long?”
“Arright. Now here’s the deal. This coming Tuesday, you gotta call at 9 a.m. 9 a.m. sharp. You call this number at 9 a.m. and then you can see if they still have groundhog traps. Cause that’s when they’re starting, Tuesday at 9 a.m. Heck, call at 8:45 – ”
“So I can’t get on a waiting list now?”
“Nope, starts Tuesday, 9 a.m. First come, first serve. If they have a trap when you call, you can have one. But you gotta be first in line.”

At this point, my head is so full of questions, so many questions I know this helpful Animal Control phone operator will not be able to answer, that I just thank them profusely and hang up. Questions like: Is there only one trap for the entire city of Pittsburgh? What if my groundhog doesn’t want to be trapped Monday through Friday but instead prefers weekends and holidays? Should I call at 9 a.m. or at 8:45 a.m., which is it? If I call at 9 a.m. and they have run out of traps already because of all the people who called at 8:45 a.m., then doesn’t that mean they started at 8:45 am?  And also, why bother calling it a waiting list if you can only get on it on a specific day and time?

The reality is that if I just filled in the groundhog’s tunnel under our shed with the rocks collected by my children, I might not even need the city of Pittsburgh’s singular groundhog trap. The suspense til Tuesday is killing me.

Post #20 of 40 Daze: A Lenten Writing Practice