Citizen complaint of the day: Stop dumping cereal and crackers at the Navy Yard

In my master-gardener classes one lecturer was the head of entomology from UMASS. He spoke a couple of times on pest control, of furry as well as insect types. He had a good time teasing the Wellesley and Dover students who contrasted their suburban hygiene with what they disparagingly called the inner city. He said they'd see the squirrels and chipmunks in the day, but even in million-plus-dollar neighborhoods, the voles, mice and, yes, rats, scampered and fed in the dark. He referred to them as the night shift.

And feeding the skunks in East Boston. I've always been fascinated with the inability of Italian families in EB to buy the correct amount of bread. When you're dumping out two loaves' worth of bread every single week, you should buy two fewer loaves a week. My former next door neighbors would do this each week like clockwork, and the skunks would happily chow down each evening, while birds largely ignored it.