I’m in my house getting ready to leave when I see an adorable woodland creature looking at me through the window. It’s covered in soft grey fur with delicate little tufts above its ears. Its dark eyes are curious and wistful. It curls its teeny tiny little squirrel paws in front of its chest as it bobs up and down in the window, it bushy tail twitching excitedly behind it.

“You little fucker,” I say to the squirrel, who is one of the cutest fuckers in my backyard and definitely not my friend.

Maybe we could be friends if I didn’t have a garden, but I don’t want friends who dig up all of my carefully tended plants so they can bury their stupid nuts all over my yard and in every single one of my planters, including the ones hanging from the freaking roof of my house. I don’t want friends who just carelessly toss said plants onto the ground like garbage after they dig them up. What kind of asshole just bites all the flowers off of someone’s brand new hibiscus tree and then spits them on the ground like a nonchalant serial killer? And what kind of asshole then proceeds to bite the hibiscus buds off before they even bloom? Who does that?

Now, spiders, on the the other hand. Now there’s a true friend. They just sit around all day garden pests. They’re not hurting anyone. They’re a gardener’s best friend, and yet I’ve been terrified of them my entire life. Why can’t spiders be cute while we make squirrels into Halloween decorations?

Maybe one day spiders will be big enough to eat squirrels, the worst garden pest of them all. Wait, no, that sounds horrifying.