I
Several weeks ago, a neighbor in a ground-floor condo had placed multiple bird-feeders around her patio, winning herself instant popularity among the bird and squirrel populations in our woodsy community. The early-morning melee was alarming; due to a mutual lack of offensive traits, each animal used vocal intimidation to compete for access to the bird seed (although I swear I saw a squirrel with a knife.)
Perhaps as a result of the furious cacophony of animal noises, the bird-feeders are now gone. Peace has been restored, but no one eats for free. Draw whatever lessons from this humble parable that you will.
II
A popular thing to do when I was a teenager was sing the Beastie Boys song “Girls” and substitute every girls with squirrels (“Squirrels! All I really want is squirrels! In the morning its squirrels! Cause in the evening its squirrels!”)
III
If I were in a squirrel story-telling contest, I know without a doubt which story I’d tell.
In college, there was a skinny kid with patchy facial hair who walked around campus with a baby squirrel perched on his shoulder. My friend AB decided she had to meet this kid, and within hours, we were sitting on the campus lawn, listening to him explain how he found the squirrel in his car. “It was, like, an instant connection,” he told us as the serene squirrel sat content on the guy’s shoulder. “I feed him sunflower seeds, and he totally lets me hold him.” That night, AB and I dreamed about getting pet squirrels of our own.
Later that week, we ran into the guy again. He was sans squirrel and depressed. Apparently, he had taken his squirrel to a party in a dorm room, where it had a severe reaction to marijuana smoke. “He ran all over the room at top speed, pissed all over this girl’s bed, then just laid there, twitching, until he died. Man, what a bummer.”
We expressed sympathy, and then I tried to lighten the mood. “That would make a real good ‘just say no’ commercial,” I said. “Drugs can make you nuts.” Both AB and the guy looked at me like I was some sort of sick fascist, but I couldn’t help laughing as I pictured an anti-drug campaign that used a crazed, pissing squirrel as its focal deterrent.
Hell, it still cracks me up.
