Squirrel Liability Insurance
I was sitting in my home office on the computer the other day and heard a crack and then a thump. The thump was rather loud; so, I opened the blind and looked out the window. I did not see anything amiss in the front yard other than a branch that had apparently fallen out of the tree. The branch was not large, nor did it appear to have hit anything in the yard other than the grass; I left the blind open and continued finishing my e-mail and other important facebook 'work.'
As I was sitting there, a person walked by on the front walk. He appeared to stop and look at the branch that had fallen and then moved along. I could not imagine was was so interesting about a stick, but I went back to my blogging. A few minutes later a pair of young kids from up the street came along and were also intently staring at the branch. They had those looks that only mischievous 5th grade boys can pull off.
I still could not imagine what was so amusing, but I knew when one 5th grade boy turns to the other 5th grade boy and says, "Dude, that's so gross!" and then the two run off laughing that further investigation was needed.
I opened the front door and looked out into the yard to find a dead, albeit morbidly obese, squirrel under aforementioned branch in aforementioned front yard. Luckily my wife was not home, as I was willing to guess that fat, dead squirrels would not have gone over so well.
I was forced to conclude that either the squirrel fell from the tree after the branch broke or had suffered some form of massive myocardial infarction due to the massive American obesity epidemic that had befallen the poor fellow. My crime scene analysis led me to conclude the latter, given that an admission of the former would have made me liable, as the homeowner, for negligence.
I would certainly have hated to have little squirrelly lawyers with little briefcases descending upon me to try to collect tort liability damages. And as nasty as those squirrels on our street are, I would not put it past them to hire some very shady lawyers.
I'd really hate to wake up one morning to find my car dented from a drive-by nutting.
As I was sitting there, a person walked by on the front walk. He appeared to stop and look at the branch that had fallen and then moved along. I could not imagine was was so interesting about a stick, but I went back to my blogging. A few minutes later a pair of young kids from up the street came along and were also intently staring at the branch. They had those looks that only mischievous 5th grade boys can pull off.
I still could not imagine what was so amusing, but I knew when one 5th grade boy turns to the other 5th grade boy and says, "Dude, that's so gross!" and then the two run off laughing that further investigation was needed.
I opened the front door and looked out into the yard to find a dead, albeit morbidly obese, squirrel under aforementioned branch in aforementioned front yard. Luckily my wife was not home, as I was willing to guess that fat, dead squirrels would not have gone over so well.
I was forced to conclude that either the squirrel fell from the tree after the branch broke or had suffered some form of massive myocardial infarction due to the massive American obesity epidemic that had befallen the poor fellow. My crime scene analysis led me to conclude the latter, given that an admission of the former would have made me liable, as the homeowner, for negligence.
I would certainly have hated to have little squirrelly lawyers with little briefcases descending upon me to try to collect tort liability damages. And as nasty as those squirrels on our street are, I would not put it past them to hire some very shady lawyers.
I'd really hate to wake up one morning to find my car dented from a drive-by nutting.
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