You know, every now and then circumstances converge to create incidents that are comic theatre at its very best. If you’re really lucky you get to witness one of these sidewalk improvisations. I was that fortunate person yesterday.
After another stimulating day of cataslacking at the medical center library, I clocked out and walked outside toward the parking deck. My path takes me along a sidewalk bordered on the right by a shoulder height brick wall and on the left by perfectly spaced, sickly Willow oaks. I noticed a squirrel on the wall and was amazed at how close he let me get before doing a lazy squirrel hop along the flat crest of the wall. He stayed about 3 feet in front of me.
I was mildly interested because we don’t see squirrels around here often. The last time we had a family of the critters in our corner of the campus, it was wiped out in one day by a hawk -- so much for animals killing only for food. Like an avian serial killer, that raptor picked them off one-by-one, sadistically displaying his victims, splayed out on tree branches outside numerous windows of our building.
So, as I was walking along with the squirrel on point, a doctor passed me on the left. Everything was cool until the squirrel ran out of wall. Now this squirrel had several options when it came to the end of the wall:
1. Stop.
2. Run down the other side of the wall into the chancellor’s garden.
3. Run down the sidewalk side of the wall and do the squirrel equivalent of dodge ball like they do in the middle of the street when confronted by a car.
4. Leap from the wall to a tree on the other side of the walkway.
If you picked number 4, you’ve read my blogs before.
The squirrel leaps, grabbing desperately for any branch. It manages to grip the end of a spindly low-hanging branch and swings toward the trunk. Freeze frame. Remember the doc that passed me? Well, he’s now dead even with tarzan squirrel. Resume action. The doctor is walking along, lost in thought, oblivious to his surroundings. I’m more interested because the squirrel’s now committed and I’m wondering how he’s gonna get out of the situation. In a split second I discovered squirrel reflexes are fast but they have their limits. The doc didn’t have a chance. One second he’s walking along, minding his own business. The next he’s smacked upside the head with a branchful of squirrel. I swear the rodent had hold of one of the poor guy’s nostrils as the branch swung back. It took me about .000001 seconds to process what I’d just witnessed and react. Another pedestrian was next to me and in unison we said, “Whoa. Dude!” The guy next to me said, “Did you see that?” I responded with, “Did that guy just get bitch slapped by a squirrel?” We then proceeded to laugh our asses off all the way to the parking deck while the doc kept looking over his shoulder at us. He was not amused. I keep replaying the event in my head -- in slow motion, complete with a high pitched tarzan yell.
The urban jungle … sinister … unpredictable … inhabited by kamikaze rodents.
After another stimulating day of cataslacking at the medical center library, I clocked out and walked outside toward the parking deck. My path takes me along a sidewalk bordered on the right by a shoulder height brick wall and on the left by perfectly spaced, sickly Willow oaks. I noticed a squirrel on the wall and was amazed at how close he let me get before doing a lazy squirrel hop along the flat crest of the wall. He stayed about 3 feet in front of me.
I was mildly interested because we don’t see squirrels around here often. The last time we had a family of the critters in our corner of the campus, it was wiped out in one day by a hawk -- so much for animals killing only for food. Like an avian serial killer, that raptor picked them off one-by-one, sadistically displaying his victims, splayed out on tree branches outside numerous windows of our building.
So, as I was walking along with the squirrel on point, a doctor passed me on the left. Everything was cool until the squirrel ran out of wall. Now this squirrel had several options when it came to the end of the wall:
1. Stop.
2. Run down the other side of the wall into the chancellor’s garden.
3. Run down the sidewalk side of the wall and do the squirrel equivalent of dodge ball like they do in the middle of the street when confronted by a car.
4. Leap from the wall to a tree on the other side of the walkway.
If you picked number 4, you’ve read my blogs before.
The squirrel leaps, grabbing desperately for any branch. It manages to grip the end of a spindly low-hanging branch and swings toward the trunk. Freeze frame. Remember the doc that passed me? Well, he’s now dead even with tarzan squirrel. Resume action. The doctor is walking along, lost in thought, oblivious to his surroundings. I’m more interested because the squirrel’s now committed and I’m wondering how he’s gonna get out of the situation. In a split second I discovered squirrel reflexes are fast but they have their limits. The doc didn’t have a chance. One second he’s walking along, minding his own business. The next he’s smacked upside the head with a branchful of squirrel. I swear the rodent had hold of one of the poor guy’s nostrils as the branch swung back. It took me about .000001 seconds to process what I’d just witnessed and react. Another pedestrian was next to me and in unison we said, “Whoa. Dude!” The guy next to me said, “Did you see that?” I responded with, “Did that guy just get bitch slapped by a squirrel?” We then proceeded to laugh our asses off all the way to the parking deck while the doc kept looking over his shoulder at us. He was not amused. I keep replaying the event in my head -- in slow motion, complete with a high pitched tarzan yell.
The urban jungle … sinister … unpredictable … inhabited by kamikaze rodents.
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