Fuzzy thoughts
I had a nightmare about a squirrel last night.
Well, I shouldn’t really say that I had a nightmare about a squirrel. I had a nightmare about the squirrel. Anyone who knows me comes to the understanding quite quickly that I have a fairly deep empathy with living non-human animals. Squirrels are among some of my favorites for reasons I haven’t really ever figured out.
When I was little, I used to sit in front of our patio glass sliding door, and I would sit very quietly and still, hoping that one of the neighborhood squirrels would come out toward our deck in order to steal some sunflower seeds from the bird feeders. My father always pounded on the glass when he saw them to make them run away (since to him, they were eating seeds intended for the bluejays and starlings). To me, though, watching the little pudgy squirrels with their quickly flicking tails was far more interesting that watching the loud bluejays squawk at each other while fighting for position at the feeder.
The squirrels were one of the reasons I chose my alma mater, actually. KU has a very large squirrel population. I used to take frequent walks around the green areas of campus that didn’t have quite so much foot traffic in order to watch them chasing each other across the grass and through the branches of trees.
During the last year I spent in Lawrence, my father was working about a three miles from my dorm, and whenever a piece of important mail showed up at our house in Topeka, he would just bring it to work with him and e-mail me to let me know to come pick it up. On one of the times when I was walking across town to get a random piece of mail, there was an accident.
There was a squirrel sitting at the base of a tree along the sidewalk next to a busy street. I was coming down the same sidewalk, heading back toward my dorm after picking up an errant piece of mail. I saw the squirrel at the base of the tree but I just thought that as I got close, the squirrel would bolt up the tree. The squirrel instead bolted out into the street.
Thump.
A car ran over the squirrel’s back end as he fled across the street. The squirrel rolled a goodly distance across the pavement and then continued a frenzied hopping roll until it reached the opposite curb. It didn’t seem able to make it up over the curb onto the grass on the other side and just sort of… flopped… around in the gutter’s leaves. By the time I made it across the street to see if the squirrel was okay, it wasn’t moving anymore. I had hoped that maybe I could take it to a vet or something to get it fixed up if maybe just the back legs were broken or something, but the car must have done a lot more internal damage than that.
After that, I bought a small plush squirrel that still hangs in my car to remind me of the life I carelessly took. I named him Mr. Squeaks.
I would have thought that a couple years separating me from that incident would have made me forget, but my dreams last night proved me wrong.
Well, I shouldn’t really say that I had a nightmare about a squirrel. I had a nightmare about the squirrel. Anyone who knows me comes to the understanding quite quickly that I have a fairly deep empathy with living non-human animals. Squirrels are among some of my favorites for reasons I haven’t really ever figured out.
When I was little, I used to sit in front of our patio glass sliding door, and I would sit very quietly and still, hoping that one of the neighborhood squirrels would come out toward our deck in order to steal some sunflower seeds from the bird feeders. My father always pounded on the glass when he saw them to make them run away (since to him, they were eating seeds intended for the bluejays and starlings). To me, though, watching the little pudgy squirrels with their quickly flicking tails was far more interesting that watching the loud bluejays squawk at each other while fighting for position at the feeder.
The squirrels were one of the reasons I chose my alma mater, actually. KU has a very large squirrel population. I used to take frequent walks around the green areas of campus that didn’t have quite so much foot traffic in order to watch them chasing each other across the grass and through the branches of trees.
During the last year I spent in Lawrence, my father was working about a three miles from my dorm, and whenever a piece of important mail showed up at our house in Topeka, he would just bring it to work with him and e-mail me to let me know to come pick it up. On one of the times when I was walking across town to get a random piece of mail, there was an accident.
There was a squirrel sitting at the base of a tree along the sidewalk next to a busy street. I was coming down the same sidewalk, heading back toward my dorm after picking up an errant piece of mail. I saw the squirrel at the base of the tree but I just thought that as I got close, the squirrel would bolt up the tree. The squirrel instead bolted out into the street.
Thump.
A car ran over the squirrel’s back end as he fled across the street. The squirrel rolled a goodly distance across the pavement and then continued a frenzied hopping roll until it reached the opposite curb. It didn’t seem able to make it up over the curb onto the grass on the other side and just sort of… flopped… around in the gutter’s leaves. By the time I made it across the street to see if the squirrel was okay, it wasn’t moving anymore. I had hoped that maybe I could take it to a vet or something to get it fixed up if maybe just the back legs were broken or something, but the car must have done a lot more internal damage than that.
After that, I bought a small plush squirrel that still hangs in my car to remind me of the life I carelessly took. I named him Mr. Squeaks.
I would have thought that a couple years separating me from that incident would have made me forget, but my dreams last night proved me wrong.
posted by The Academian | 8:23 PM
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