It’s time to open up my hermetically sealed mind.

Last Wednesday, I invited everyone to drop ONE question in the comments of my ES 10th birthday post which I would answer for you the following week (that would be today).  I didn’t title this post “Twenty Questions” since that happens to be the name of a really annoying interrogative game… you all literally gave me 20 questions to ponder over!  The response was overwhelming, and also means that I don’t have time to craft some overly wordy, unnecessary intro to this post unless I want to type up a novel.

Ain’t nobody got time to read that.

So let’s go straight on to the questions, presented in some semi-random order!  I will try to come up with an informative, while also concise answer to every question… likely with some added dose of silliness and sarcasm.  Remember, I promised you answers, but they may not always be what you were expecting…..

Question 1: Have you always owned cats…er I mean have cats always owned you? – Tails Around The Ranch

Since I ventured out onto my own, yes.  Though that’s only been nine years now (I can’t believe I’m saying only nine years… damn, I’m so old).  Ody and Biskit would like to take exception to the “owned you” part, since I’m not quite the willing master cats like to think they will get to serve their every whim.  Especially when I’m cheating on them with another feline…

So this is your new mistress, huh? Why does she get fed better than I do?

Question 2: Can you make a weekly cat-feature on Wednesdays? – Franhunne4u

While I have almost as many stockpiled cat photos as I do squirrel pictures, they’re mostly of the same cats.  And since about every third Picture Day post has cat photos in it, I’ll probably just leave Wednesdays open for more random stupid stuff like this…

Or my next shitty music countdown…

Question 3: After having watched your countdown and expecting this song (“My Heart Will Go On – Celine Dion) to pop up, what is your opinion of it? – Faith Hope Chocolate

I can’t remember if I put that song up for consideration or not when I was drafting the list for my Top 30 Iconic Songs I Can’t Stand countdown.  But while it is a thoroughly wretched song by one of the 90’s most thoroughly wretched artists, I haven’t been exposed to it as much as it seems many others have… which is likely what spared it from my poison keyboard.

Let’s drop Celine Dion in the North Atlantic.

Question 4: that last photo in your post of Frank Gorshin as the Riddler – Obviously he just completed some sort of “dreaded exam” on someone with that finger of his and I want to know is that a sterile glove he’s wearing? – Pam

Well, there is only one way to find out… and I’m not going there.  Any volunteers?

Who wants to smell my finger?

Question 5: In a lot of your posts you mention Mecca as where you are employed. I’ve never heard of it before, so…what is it, and what do you do there? – ghostmmnc

Since it is not wise for people to directly refer to their employer online (And EVERYONE has bad things to say about the place they work, I don’t care whether you’re the worker who stands and holds the SLOW sign at a road construction site all day long, or you spit shine bidets for a living), I’ve used the code name Mecca since it had already been established as a nickname for the company that keeps acorns on my table on my other internet hangout.  Mecca likes to be known as The World’s Largest Retailer, and I have been an overnight stocker there since I started in May of 1998.  My 20th anniversary of servitude is this weekend.

Hmmmm, I wonder where the Sponkies got that badge from?

Question 6: What’s the one word would you use to best describe yourself? (Besides smartass.) – Merby

It is so difficult to sum up a personality in just one word… unlike the characters I create that are very much caricatures.  Maybe just the generic “abnormal” would do it.  There are many, many ways I’m not like other people…

Besides just staging scenes of unicorn porn.

Question 7: Why EVIL squirrel? I love the name, mind you … but squirrels are so NOT evil. Was it the natural contrariness of the name? – Marilyn

I could get into a long, complex, and probably even controversial discussion about “good and evil” as it relates to humans and animals… but I’ll just state that as a squirrel lover, even I would recognize that many people DO consider squirrels to be evil.  That’s actually beside the point, though…. why Evil Squirrel?  Well, WordPress isn’t the only place on the internet where people post as their pets.  That happened on my Millionaire message board as well, and one of the “dogs” there used to constantly complain about the “evil squirrel” in her yard, and I created the Evil Squirrel alter ego to interact with her.  The Evil Squirrel personality just seemed to perfectly suit a little grey squirrel I was drawing at the time, so the name and the personality transferred to it.  Outside of that context, ES would have almost certainly got a different name…

One possible suggestion from my vast image archive.

Question 8: When did you discover your admiration of the bushy-tailed critters? And why? Also, do the cats ever get jealous? – Jackie P.

Whoa, easy there!  Only one question per customer!  So I’ll answer the first one since it’s related to the preceding answer.  That Evil Squirrel became the primary critter in my cartoon stable directly led to my fascination with squirrels.  I barely paid attention to squirrels at all before that happened ten years ago.  I would like to think that Walt Disney developed an affinity for mice as well…

Walt’s Monday Mouse feature would be to die for!

Question 9: What are you most passionate about? – Randomly Erin

The things I have been most passionate about have come and gone through the years… but the one thing they all have in common: creativity!  My quirky and fucked up sense of creativity, that is.  It’s something everyone has, but many people criminally under-use it… which is why it’s the main component of the Contest of Whatever I run every February.  It’s almost paradoxical that the insane things my mind comes up with actually help keep me sane… but the imagination is a playground, and I spend a LOT of my time there since I really have nothing better to do…

The cats won’t play chess with me.

Question 10: How do you feel about the Menendez brothers (killed their parents) being moved to the same prison & same, uh, block (not sure that’s correct word, but you know what I mean)? I am against it. Bad boys, bad boys. – Crimsonowl57

The Menendez Brothers are still relevant?  Wow, who knew?  The prison version of the Doublemint Twins is a frightening visualization to behold…

Those soft fuzzy sweaters are going to be a hit with Bubba and Big Scrat…

Question 11: Why iz PI …de onlee dessert ….. ta get an equation… – Da Tabbies Of Trout Towne

Well, keep in mind that only defective pies not fit for eating can be used in math class.  After all, the formula states that Pi R Squared, and who wants to eat a square pie?

The Three Stooges would never stoop to throwing something like this at each other.

Question 12: Were there any critters, real or cartoon, that you were crazy about as a kid? – Trisha

So many pets came and went during my childhood, it was hard to get attached to any of them.  The three pets from my younger days that stand out are a black lab named Midnight, a black cat we rescued from near the river named Tinkerbell (After the belled collar it was wearing… and it was a male cat!), and a torty cat named Fluffy who is maybe the toughest broad I have ever known.  She was basically dumped on us by a neighbor kid thirty years ago (This week!  What’s with all the anniversaries in early May for me?) at about four weeks old… and she not only managed to survive away from her mother, but lived another 12 years as a primarily outside cat who routinely beat the shit out of dogs ten times her size and gave birth to enough kittens to make Bob Barker have a stroke…

Fluffy and one of her many broods. Ah, the joys of motherhood…

Question 13: If you could travel back to any time period when would it be? – Juliette

I’m not sure if I’d want to visit a time period I did not live through.  I mean, when your only perspective of a certain age is what historians have chosen to remember and immortalize about that particular time, you just know there’s going to be a whole lot of unforeseen surprises, not many of them good.  Every single period of my life that had its good times I recall well was also filled with shitty things I’d rather not experience again.  Maybe we can just set the DeLorean for January 18, 2001 so I can have another shot at whooping her butt…

Nah, I’d just get skunked all over again…

Question 14: Had snuggle bear always THIS facial impression as in the photo above or do you think it just happened as he… well ya know… – Phenny

That would be a reference to this famous photo…

Yeeehaw!!

And I’d answer that it’s hard to tell, because oddly enough, he has that same expression when Big Scrat is giving it to him from the other end…

He can’t even pretend he doesn’t like it.

The next question is addressed to our resident bimbocorn…

I better, like, put my testicles on to look totally smart!

Question 15: Mitzi, if you could, like, choose any profession besides, like, being the village harlot and stuff, what would you, um, do? And would, like, any of your current fellow creatures, you know, be your cohorts in your new, uh, adventure? – Quirky Girl

I’d, like, totally be a uranusologist so I could check critters’ weewees every day and prescribe Viagra!  And there’d totally be free in-office testing out of the samples as well!  Everyone would be coming to see Dr. Mitzi to, like, get their pipes checked!  And cleaned!

Another satisfied customer of Dr. Mitzi!

Question 16: If you didn’t write about squirrels here, what would your blog be about? – Ally Bean

I don’t know that The Nest really has much of a theme anymore.  I write about squirrels, music, cats, put on strange theatrical plays with inanimate objects.  And in the past there were comics, TV ads, 80’s stuff, and other assorted potpourri.  I probably wouldn’t blog at all if I had to stay on any one subject because I’m too ADD…

Maybe I would write about unicorns. There aren’t enough unicorn blogs.

Question 17: You’re in a store and you are buying only four items. These four items have to be something that would make the cashier remember you from all of her other customers for the day. What are the four items? – Bacon

Let’s see what memorable products I can pull out of my archive…

1. A fat unicorn

I’m going to have to look inside and see if you’re trying to shoplift anything.

2. Unbelievable This Is Not Butter

I like a little mystery in my life.

3. Urkel O’s cereal

Who cares if it’s been expired for 25 years?

4. Shit Glitter

Because gold shit doesn’t stink!

Question 18: Are there any movies that have actually brought you to tears and I mean sad or happy tears not just because it was a shitty movie tears? – Ladybuggz

Between not being much of a movie watcher, nor an overly emotional person, the answer is absolutely not.  Interestingly enough, though, a TV display was set up near where I was working earlier in the year, and they decided to put the classic animated film Bambi on constant repeat… including at night when no little kids were around to be traumatized by Bambi’s mother getting shot.  I’d never seen it before and never really knew what its plot was.  I got to see (or really, hear) it’s circle of life theme get played out over and over again for weeks… and after a while, well it does kinda get to you.  But I don’t cry…

I’d hate for my mascara to run while I’m at work…

Question 19: you seem to like (o)possums quite a lot. You have posted that picture of those hideous babies several times. So why did you choose Buster, your possum character, to keep dying horribly? I’m not complaining, it’s funny, just asking… – Draliman

I didn’t choose Buster, nature just took its course (as it usually does with possums trying to cross the road).  Like with any good running gag, it started off just being something that happened to him a few times in my comic series… and it got to the point where somebody noticed Buster seemed to get killed a lot, and that’s when it became a more conscious theme.  Given Buster’s creepy, non-pleasing personality in my comic series, his deaths could often be chalked up to karma’s revenge.  It’s a shame his reformed and jovial character in SCT is forced to endure the same fate…

Naw…. it’s funny as hell even when Buster dies with a big smile on his face.

And last but not least, an unofficial question that never got replaced….

Question 20: Will you marry me?

😛

Ok, I will try to think of a legit question later. Try, being the key word there. – Holly

Wait, that wasn’t a legit question!?!?  Well, I guess this squirrel’s relieved then…

So much for forever holding your peace.

Thank you everyone who played along and made this an even bigger success than I could have imagined!  This would get very tiring as some kind of regular feature, but as something to do a few times a year… I think it would be a nice break from the regularity of my other features.  So… we may try this again in a few months.  Start thinking about your next probing question right now…

And I’ll start thinking of my next smartass answer…