I was awoken the other morning by the wonderful sound of soft tapping on my bedroom wall.  I got out of bed to find out that it was a stupid woodpecker, boring its way into my house.  As with the squirrel incident, if I owned a gun, this bird would have been surprised to find some extra metal in its fleshy parts. 

The thing I don't understand about this situation is this:  Why in the name of God's green earth do we humans decide to build our living spaces out of the most pest-ridden, rot-prone building material on earth, i.e. wood?  Why don't we use stone or metal or plastic, or some other material that isn't made of irregularly spaced grains and has a tendency to soak up water like a sponge?  Perhaps we could choose something that isn't a natural meal for ants, bees, termites, mice, squirrels, woodpeckers, and hell, really anything that feels like it could use a snack.  I mean, we have iPods and high def TVs and nuclear bombs.  In 1000 years, we'll still have iPods, high def TVs, and nuclear bombs, but our stupid houses will be worthless heaps of garbage because they're made of a once-living substance.