The Time My Brother Boiled a Squirrel in My Mother's Pot

Listen, before we begin, I need everyone to understand one thing:

We did not live in the country.

This wasn't some rustic cabin in the woods where people casually cleaned game on the porch while discussing the weather. We lived in the city. We had neighbors. We had a perfectly acceptable grocery store ten minutes away.

Which is why the day my little brother boiled a squirrel in my mother's favorite pot remains one of the most traumatic events of her adult life.

Now, to fully appreciate this story, you need to understand my mother.

My mother is terrified of mice.

Not mildly uncomfortable. Not "please remove that from my presence."

Terrified.

One memory stands out vividly.

She found a mouse in the pantry.

The moment she saw it, she screamed like she had discovered a serial killer living behind the canned green beans. Then she took off running through the kitchen, through the dining room, and into the foyer where she leapt onto the first stair and refused to come down.

The mouse probably weighed three ounces.

My mother reacted like it was a velociraptor.

The second incident was somehow worse.

One summer evening she went outside to light the grill. She struck a match, then lifted the lid and suddenly discovered a family of mice had apparently decided to move into the grill.

What happened next looked less like backyard cooking and more like a low-budget Viking funeral.

There was screaming.

There was fire.

There was chaos.

There was absolutely no grilling that evening.

So when I tell you that my little brother decided to process a squirrel in her kitchen, understand that this was basically psychological warfare.

The thing is, my brother was actually a remarkably good hunter.

By eleven years old he could outshoot most adults.

I remember him attending NRA camp and coming home with an absurd amount of awards, new guns, and scoops as well as a free hunting trip for him and my dad. The kid could hit whatever he aimed at. Looking back, it's honestly impressive.

The problem wasn't that he hunted.

The problem was that he brought the results home.

One day he shot a squirrel and decided that, because responsible hunters eat what they harvest, he would prepare it.

Again.

In our city house.

In my mother's kitchen.

Now, I don't remember every detail of the cleaning process, probably because my brain has attempted to protect itself from the memory.

What I do remember is my mother's face.

The horror.

The disgust.

The complete loss of faith in humanity.

Because while my brother saw food, my mother saw a tree rat.

And all she could think about was where that squirrel had been.

What had it touched?

What had it eaten?

What diseases was it carrying?

What unspeakable squirrel activities had occurred before it ended up in her cookware?

Then came the boiling.

In one of her pots.

Her actual cooking pots.

The same pots she used to feed her family.

I am fairly certain my mother mentally left her body at that point.

To my brother, the pot was simply a cooking vessel.

To my mother, the pot had become contaminated beyond redemption.

There was no amount of soap in existence that could save it.

No amount of bleach.

No amount of prayer.

No amount of therapy.

The pot was dead to her.

So she threw it away.

Not donated.

Not stored.

Not given a second chance.

Straight into the trash.

Frankly, if she could have removed the granite countertops and thrown those away too, she probably would have.

The kitchen required an exorcism.

Years later, I still laugh about it.

Mostly because everyone involved was technically correct.

My brother was practicing a skill and using what he harvested.

My mother was trying to preserve what little sanity she had left.

And somewhere in the middle sat a squirrel that cost an innocent pot its life.

As a side note, remember that pantry mouse my mother was terrified of?

It wasn't a wild mouse.

It was my sister's missing hamster.

Which just goes to show that sometimes the thing you're running from isn't actually what you think it is.

Although, to be fair, if someone boiled a hamster in one of my pots, I'd probably throw the pot away too.