Confrontation with a Squirrel
I walked into the living room on my way out the door for work. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed something hanging on the screen door covering the sliding glass door to our patio. Our place was a dated two floor condo. Chad and I shared a lower floor unit. While lacking in modern esthetic, the unit was a good size and sported a large fenced patio. The patio ran the length of the unit with a high fence, giving privacy if not seclusion.
The patio was a major reason we chose to live on Trevino Drive. We were seduced by its size and those high walls. Visions of bacchanal parties-- copious drinking, slabs of barbecued meats and beautiful scantily clad women of loose morals -- no doubt sealed the deal.
We never had one of those parties.
I stopped in my tracks to ponder the brownish turd shape clinging stubbornly to the screen. I changed course and approached cautiously and with increasing puzzlement. As I got closer, I recognized the brown blot was a squirrel, eyes wide and fixed. It clung to the screen, motionless, as if awaiting further instruction from some unknown supervisor. I tapped the glass between us hoping the sudden noise would jolt it out of its apparent stupor, but it didn’t budge. Confused, I opened the glass door to get a better look. The rodent appeared stiff as a board and I wondered if it was actually dead. But if dead, why were its eyes open? Maybe it died of surprise? I didn’t know what to make of it, it’s tiny sharp claws firmly hooked into the weave of the screen.
Throwing caution to the wind, I flicked my finger on the inside of the screen just to the squirrel’s right, and nothing. It held its grip, stiff and as unflinching as a statue. At that point, I decided to leave the mysterious stowaway and head off to work. As strange as the incident was, I hardly gave it a thought the rest of the day. I guess I figured hunger would eventually win the day and it would reawaken from its miasma and go back to foraging or whatever squirrels actually do.
When I got home that evening, I went through my normal routine of turning on lights and closing blinds when I noticed my catatonic furry friend still hanging on the screen in what unbelievably appeared to be the same exact spot. I approached to take a better look and was dumbstruck to find that the little bugger appeared to have not moved a scant millimeter in the more than nine hours since our previous stare down.
Surely this thing was dead, I thought. It had succumbed to a tiny heart attack while scaling my screen door looking for God knows what. Just then a thought occurred to me. I was going to have to make arrangements for the body. The thought gave me the willies. The idea of touching a cold, stiff and dead little creature was horrifying. But I was the only one home and I wasn’t about to leave him there, watching over my shoulder all night as I sat on the couch. What I did next is an embarrassing reminder of my general lack of old school manliness.
I had once heard that squirrels carry rabies, so on the off chance the little guy was still clinging to life as it clung to the screen, I put on just about every stitch of clothing I had in my closet, covering every inch of my body. Over my shirt, went a sweater. Over my pants went a pair of sweats. Over all that went my snowboarding pants. Over my sweater, went a heavy jacket. On my head, a thick beanie. To prevent an oral attack, I donned a neoprene vented mask over my face. I can only imagine I must have looked like an overstuffed burglar or the Michelin Man’s retarded vagrant cousin.
Ever so gently I maneuvered my hand into position, covering the back of the squirrel's body, expecting I’ll need a firm grip to wriggle its claws from their hold on the screen. With what can only be described as the wimpiest of hesitation I grabbed for its tiny body too gingerly and with the rudeness of a public fart, the heretofore bereft bugger leaped from the screen and plunged to a sickening thud on the hard pavement. The shock of the moment sent me into a violent episode of spastic hoping and shuddering.
This was of course, not one of my finer moments, but it sticks in my mind, because I’ve never been able to forget the little guy’s patience. I don’t know what he was waiting on hanging there for all those hours, but he was certainly wasn’t going to be hurried.
