TIM E HOLDER

So…I was driving to work this morning.  And I was talking (not texting) on the phone.  I looked ahead and saw a squirrel sitting in the road.  After living in the country for 13 years, I’ve become fairly adept at maneuvering around live critters.  Mostly.  So, I swerved to miss the adorable little fellow and didn’t feel a bump.   I was happy.  I looked in the rear view mirror to make sure he made it across the road and was running off to scamper and frolic with his squirrely little friends, and was horrified to see him him break-dancing like a trout on hot asphalt in the road.  My heart, as usual when an injured animal is concerned, jumped straight into my throat, effectively cutting off oxygen to my brain, and by extension, any rational decision making processes.

I slammed on the brakes and turned my car around.  The only solution, which is totally abhorrent to me, was to  go back and run over him again and put him out of his misery.  I was already starting to get misty-eyed (not to mention a bit nauseous).  He was  lying on his side, motionless as I approached and I thought he had already passed into furry nirvana,  when another car passed him and he flopped over onto his belly, sat straight up and stared straight ahead.  I let out a  pained howl that sounded not unlike a screech owl being neutered without antisthetic.

I parked on the closest dirt road, jumped out of the car, and raced back.  He was just sitting there, looking off into the distance, trying to decide whether or not he should go toward “the light.” WhatEVER he was thinking, I KNOW he felt like he’d just been eaten by a bear and crapped off a cliff.   I was already blubbering as I apologized profusely and  then reached down to see how close I could get.  He was obviously in shock.  I reached down and patted him a little.  I then picked him up and set him gingerly on the floor board between my feet.  I turned the car around and drove back to Doubletree Veterinary Clinic (where I work) so Dr. Peck could check him out to see if he would live or…not.

I slowly and gingerly parked the car outside the clinic. I, just as gingerly, and full of compassion, care and love reached down to pick him up…when he miraculously moved from shock to a radical state of distress.  This surprising turn of attitude moved me into the same state of bug-eyed panic, more or less.  He (obviously not as injured as I first suspected) began bolting from ceiling to floor to banging against the windows, to door to dash board to…back dash board ledge…thing…(whatever that “back dashboard ledge thing is called)… and shaking, more from agitation at this point than distress and all the while I was trying to calm him AND me down.  I reached for him and he began the leaping again with great abandon.  He landed on that back dashboard ledge…thing and I froze…very still for a while.  He was glaring at me with a “I will shank you” look.

(Okay, sidebar.  I think he was actually a terrorist and I had, in fact, thwarted his evil world dominance plan from a suicide bombing attempt aimed at destroying our nations power lines.)

So, I was leaning over the seat, arms stretched out, trying to nab him, when he lurched at me, scratching my face and landing squarely on my back.  So, here I was, leaning over the drivers seat, arms outstretched in front of me, with a squirrel sitting on my back.  And he didn’t leave.  He didn’t move. He just sat there. On my back.  I began to jiggle a bit.  He stayed.  I jiggled more.  He stayed (and I’m not sure, but there could have been maniacal, all-be-it shrill, piercing laughter).

So, I tried to reach back behind me, and that’s when he dove to the passenger floor board.  I swiftly, and with great agility, reached down and grabbed his tail, which…well…it was kind of like peeling rosemary buds off it’s stem.  There was a moment of stunned disbelief on his face, and I’m sure mine, as we both looked at the tuft of fluff left in my grip.  And then we both slowly moved our gaze to gape at the plucked carnage that used to be a thick, fuzzy, fluffy tail.   I chose to take the moment.

Perhaps not the wisest choice of my life, I grabbed again and got hold of his back.  I never really appreciated the agility or adroitness of these frisky little nut snatchers until this moment.  He, in turn, reached around and sunk his teeth into my index finger.  Deep.  And didn’t let go.  He was literally hanging from my finger.  I shook my finger…three times. With each jiggle, he turned his defiant, furious eyes at me as if to say, “is that all ya got? Really…???”

After feeling he had toyed with me long enough, he dropped…and dove under the passenger seat.  I am now bleeding like a stuck pig.  He was hiding under the seat.  I thought if I moved the seat back and forth it might encourage him to come out.  But, the seats are, alas, electric and move about a 10th of an inch every 15 to 20 seconds.  I finally realized he was secure in his “fortress of solitude and wasn’t going to budge.

I staggered into the clinic, blood coursing down my finger and the side of my face.  The whole staff just looked at me with jaws dropped. “what happened to you?” “I just got bit by a squirrel…in my car.” “no…seriously…what happened?” No one could believe it had all actually been done by a squirrel.  Until I took them out to the car and they SAW the foul personification of evil sitting in the passenger seat.

So, co-worker Jenny and I tried in vain to capture him using a portable kennel outside the door…and then…after 20 or so minutes, someone else said, “why don’t you just back away and let him jump out?” “oh…yeah…good point.” So…I backed away from the door and watched as he jumped out, plowing into the side of the open door, and bolted into a nearby tree.

I am now waiting for a call from my doctor about antibiotics, pain meds and yes…rabies shots.  So if you are driving down Kanis, close to Ferndale and a precious, adorable, darling, little squirrel crosses the road with a bunged-up, disfigured tail…speed up!!! Or…at the very least…call Homeland Security…immediately!!!