Squirrels

You know what I like? Squirrels. I mean, who doesn’t like squirrels? They’re furry, they are (admittedly) kind of cute, and they run around like little, anxious bottle rockets jetting from one location to the next as if chased by a pack of wolves. Squirrels are probably the ADHD kids of the animal kingdom.

Speaking of ADHD, what kid hasn’t imagined creating a squirrel army? OK, what male kid? Exactly. No one. At least no one who was fun. Point is, squirrels are freaking awesome.

Fuck yeah

 

Naturally, being a child who went camping often, I have many stories about squirrels. Hell, some of the stories I have aren’t even mine. I remember watching my grandfather (on my mother’s side) and my dad talk about how squirrels once stole the city picnic down in this small town in Arkansas. Unfortunately, I don’t actually remember all of the details of the story so here’s what I imagine what it was like:

 

The thing is, squirrel stories are actually only really funny if you were there or, in some rare cases, if you understand the situation surrounding it already. It’s a great aside to mention what one squirrel did, like when my friend came back from Baylor University and talked about a squirrel running up to a table and throwing it’s arms wide open as if saying “What mother fucker what?”

Fuck the Park Service

 

Squirrels are weird. More than just natural, untamed animal weird, I mean that everything about them is freaking weird somehow. Those beady little eyes that stare at you angrily as you walk past, daring you to go after its stash, waiting patiently for you to leave before scurrying down and resuming what it had been doing just a few seconds prior. And in the spring, they’re everywhere and you just know one day they’re going to realize that there are so many of them and so few of us.

And sometimes when the sun goes down, just in that dim period when there’s too much light for your eyes to really adjust and yet too little light to really see, when everything is already moving and the air is filled with strange noises already, sometimes I hear a little rustling in the distance behind me. Except when I turn to look, there’s nothing there but the little shadow of a tail disappearing into some particularly tall grass surrounding a tree. And that’s how I know; they’re watching me. Waiting. Biding their time pretending to be these cute little animals. And that’s how I know that one day, they won’t be so cute anymore.

First the Acorns, then the world!!!!