Squirrel!

I yell ^that in my head every time I see one. ...I say “in my head” because you wouldn’t want to hear that every time I see a squirrel. I wouldn’t want to hear myself yell that.) But I did hear it all the time in high school, and that’s where all this came from.

The grounds of my high school had a lot of squirrels, and it was hard not to notice them at all times of the day. During class, they would scamper up the trees and park outside the windows, prompting at least one student to either yell, “Squirrel!” in the middle of a lesson or, in an attempt to not cause a scene, turn toward the back of the room where the windows were to watch it scurry. (If the student were sitting in the front of the room, it wouldn’t matter which one he chose. And yes, it was always “he.”) For those of us who ran around the neighborhood as part of practice for a sport, the afternoons were even better. They were Prime Time for Furry Interruptions from Nature.

As a (by no means stellar) member of the cross country and distance track teams, I found myself almost looking for squirrels as we ran along the streets near our high school. We worked squirrels into our informal points system, where points were “awarded” and “taken away” in the same spirit as Whose Line Is It Anyway?, as in they didn’t really matter, but we still paid attention to it because they were tied to social cues and team harmony. Jokes sometimes got you a point, good PRACTICAL jokes could get you ten points, falling embarrassingly might have lost you five points, and being a poopy-head could take away a point a minute. We didn’t keep track of points because it was THAT informal, but they did tie the practices together and make for good conversation during our runs.

Squirrels, because of their speed, their furry tails, and their generally comical nature, were worth a significant number of points if caught. (“Significant number of points” = ONE MILLION POINTS) We never caught any squirrels, though, because a) it would have taken too much effort while we were running and b) would YOU like to be grabbed & picked up & removed from your play area just for a bigger animal’s enjoyment? (I didn’t think so!) We never expected to give anyone a million points for catching a squirrel, but we enjoyed them so much that we couldn’t let our informal points system exist without it.

My love of squirrels... Love? Nah, I don’t LOVE squirrels. They can’t love you back. Let’s look for a better word…

My interest in squirrels continues to this day. (That's better!) In fact, it might have grown since high school for two reasons:

1) The squirrels at IU are intense! They’re bigger and more willing to get in your way than other squirrels I’m used to. Nowhere else have I seen a squirrel outside of a dining hall holding breadsticks as nunchucks.

2) I have my own camera! During my freshman year I had a Canon PowerShot A560, and this year I upgraded to a Nikon D80 with a wide lens and a long lens. Over those two years, I’ve snapped a few photos whenever I come across one and have my camera. (I don’t go out and find photogenic squirrels. I don’t have to; they aren’t scared to get close.)

...Don’t tell anybody this, but when no one’s around, and I see a squirrel, my eyes get big and I yell, “Squirrel!” It doesn’t always stay in my head.

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I See What You Did There

I’ve developed my sense of humor from six sources of varying influence: my dad, Comedy Central, Boy’s Life jokes, Dave Barry, Garrison Keillor, and newspaper comics. The last one supplies today’s installment of I See What She Said There. Since it’s in a family-friendly newspaper, the following joke, which appeared in Crankshaft this morning, isn’t of the “that’s what she said” kind. I wouldn’t stoop to that level of jokes, anyway. That would be immature. ;D


(from The Seattle Times)