It's a rite of passage for the animals in my parents' neighborhood to come beat up my mother's cat. This is a shame, because Tigger is a sweet, sedate fluffball who wants nothing more out of life than to spend his days inside the house, dreamily pawing designs into the sand of his litterbox with the concentration of a meditating zen master. But my mother has allergies, so usually Tigger has to lounge outside on his special towel on the deck.

All in all he has had to overcome many obstacles in his life. His mother was named Bob, and as a kitten he was attacked by a pack of feral blue jays. Also, despite the fact that he has never showed the slightest bit of interest in the fairer sex, tomcats from near and far make it a point to come into our backyard and knock him around, just to show what tough guys they are.

And then the squirrel turned up. When my mother first spotted it it had a corner of Tigger's special towel clenched between its teeth and was breezily tugging the towel across the deck towards its tree. Immediately she went outside and shooed the squirrel away, but an hour later it was back, once more dragging the towel towards its lair.

So, naturally, she decided to reason with it. The towel was worn and tattered. Why not give the squirrel a piece of the action?

"Here," she said, ripping off a corner. "I'm going to put this here...like that..." slowly she backed away, "and you can come get it when I'm gone if you promise to leave Tigger's towel alone."

After she had gone back inside, the squirrel hastily snatched up his cut of the towel and stashed it in its tree hole. And all was well. Until the next day, when once again the squirrel was tugging at Tigger's towel.

Well, my mother thought, it's getting awfully cold. Maybe he needs another piece. And once again she ripped off a section, placed it a ways away from Tigger, and told the squirrel he could have it if he just left the rest of the towel alone.

"Mom!" I said when she told us this story. "You need to stop giving into this little extortionist's demands. He's taking advantage of you."

"Yeah," my sister said. "You don't know what he'll start tugging on next, now that he knows you'll give it to him. What if you look out tomorrow and he's tugging on Tigger?"

"Yeah," I said. "Are you going to chop Tigger's leg off and lay that aside for him? He'll probably start tugging on you next, or a corner of the house. I can just see him up there in his little tree hole, his feet propped up on Tigger's towel...or leg...laughing at how easily we give in."

Squirrels. You can't trust them with their long tails and their stupid twitchy noses. And all that stuff they steal from us.