A disaster in the making

Years ago, back in my vegetarian days, someone left a whole country ham on my door step. Subtle, eh? Anyway, we hauled it in and thought that we'd take it to a local butcher, have it sliced up, wrapped up, and then I'd deliver portions of it to local shelters.

We had a collection of cats in those days, so we smartly put it on top of the refrigerator . . . because no cat could get up there, right?

In the middle of the night, we were awakened by the screams of a love-sick moose and terrible gnashing and gashing sounds. We rushed to the source of the noise to find the Toad (pictured) on top of the ham, digging furiously through layers of paper wrapping, and squalling his frustration that he could not get to the ham. That tasty, tasty, ham.

We spent the rest of the weekend playing "hide the ham" with him.

Tonight, in preparation for our party tomorrow, I have a cooler with 10 pounds of shrimp defrosting in a brine. I have two cases of beer on top of the cooler to keep little noses and paws out. I still suspect that before the night is over, the cooler will be in the bathtub with the door firmly shut. And, we will spend the night "discouraging" the critters from digging through the door.