September 29th, 2006 by Atomictumor
Squirrels don’t like me.
Back in the day, I’d hang out at my buddies house in Chattanooga being generally thuggish and troublesome, but I stayed away from one particular tree in a neighboring house, because The Squirrel lived there.
Now, I don’t know what I did to the squirrel to piss it off, but lemme tell you, it was pissed. Maybe it was some kind of reincarna
tion thing, where I smote it in a past life or something, or maybe it just didn’t like the cut of my gib, but that bastard would shoot to kill whenever I approached. My little brother, my friends, anybody else were OK, but if I got within 20 or so feet of the mother tree, I’d get a warning chirp, then an attack cry (like a squirrelly ululation), then a high velocity walnut to the temple.
That bastard had some accuracy and range to go with that super-throwing-death arm that it possessed. Once I heard the cry, I’d know I came too close. There’d be no outrunning The Squirrel, because it’d clip you with at least two nuts before you got out of range. You never quite knew where they were coming from either, on account of the uncanny camouflage of The Squirrel.
Since then, squirrel activity seems to have become more and more aggressive. The hickory nut tree in my back yard only seems to drop nuts when I’m outside, leaving me to think they’re dropbombing me. I’m now almost certain they were responsible for the crack in the windshield that the poor Volvo received last year.
To that end, I was dismayed by two events.
First, I found this report from Mountain View, CA, indicating that guerilla squirrels are aggressively attacking 4 year olds and others this summer, indicating that the philosophy of The Squirrel has moved westward, as all philosophies inevitably do, in preparation of worldwide adoption. This is a problem, because while the government has been sure to work up laws authorizing torture and wiretapping, this is only effective against human opponents. In fact, as the American intelligence organizations are loathe to admit, the squirrels series of chirps, in the .01 and 10 KHZ range, has been found to be uncrackable thus far.
Theres no way to know what they’re planning in our back yards, but you can bet its going to be ugly, and probably nutty, as well.
Second, and more importantly, is that I crushed one of the bastards to death on Laboratory Road while driving to pick up the paycheck yesterday. Of course it was accidental, one of those moments when the beast is in the median of the road, not sure whether to zig or zag, and darts out. It cleared 3 of the wheels, but that rear passenger wheel came out of nowhere and nailed the poor bastard.
I can say its accidental all day long, but it won’t make a difference. They’re going to want vengeance.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:12 am
vengeance
September 29th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
Mucho wicked little critters. Just why I keep my squirrel gun handy. No tree rat is gonna take me out.
September 29th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Tree rat. I like that.
I like how posts on this site can go from being fairly intellectual to stories about tree rats with a taste for blood. You just never know what to expect.
September 30th, 2006 at 8:43 pm
“You just never know what to expect.”
Yep, Just like with the squirrels.