Tuesday, April 03, 2007
Hokey Smokes, Bullwinkle!
Rodents and I have never really gotten along. Whether the mice who used to scurry around in my Underwood classroom or the bat that invaded my bedroom here at the Invisible Commune, I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan. Contrary to what my students might have claimed after surveying the array of specimens mounted above my desk, in actuality I am not bound by some sort of vendetta against the bright-eyed or the bushy-tailed. So long as they do not invade the spaces where I live or work, I have no major gripe with most of nature's creatures. The trees and bushes surrounding the Invisible Commune are fair game. I leave them alone and they leave me alone.
But my faith in my nonaggression pact with the area's fauna was thrown into serious jeopardy this afternoon. After a long afternoon of reading in the library, I was looking forward to getting home, making dinner, and because I'm in graduate school, doing even more reading. As I stumbled wearily up the driveway, however, I suddenly heard a strange noise about a foot and a half ahead of me.
There, lying on the gravel driveway ahead of me was something disturbing. It was a squirrel. A twitching, bleeding, and hairless squirrel which had apparently lost the fight against gravity rather severely and was still alive, though barely.
My first thought was something along the lines of an expletive followed by "That was very close to hitting me. " After wondering if I had committed one offense too many against rodentkind, I started pondering what exactly could lead to this squirrel's sudden appearance. After all, this squirrel didn't suddenly wake up after an afternoon nap and decide to pull out its hair and launch a kamikaze attack on me. Things like that just don't happen outside of Far Side cartoons. I thought. Clearly squirrels don't just plummet out of trees for no reason. But there didn't seem to be any large birds of prey around to have dropped it from fifty feet up and thanks to basic rules regarding how electrical circuits are completed, the power lines running up to the house were not responsible either. There wasn't even an anthropomorphized moose with a penchant for puns.
My reverie on the subject of flying squirrels was cut short, however, by the sudden appearance of one of my housemates wearing a pair of light blue rubber gloves. After I informed him of what was going on, he burst out laughing...and once he filled me in, I started to get the joke. Apparently, with the onset of spring, the household cat has taken to going hunting. Sometimes, as a sign of good faith, she'll bring back her prey and lay at the feet of own of us like a good vassal should. Over spring break, she left a dead bird on a bedroom floor. This week, it seems, marked the start of squirrel season. And what better way to celebrate then with a ceremonial gift to the lords of the manor (or...a contribution to the Invisible Commune, if you prefer).
So the squirrel in question was delivered, bloodied and broken upon my housemate's carpet. The obvious reaction? Dispose of it! But how...? There needed to be some way to get the animal outside with only minimum handling. Walking it down several flights of stairs would take too much time...and apparently there weren't any bags or what have you to put it in. No, the solution came (as I reconstructed it in my head later) like a beam of light through the nearby bathroom window. A window which conveniently overlooked the driveway...
I suppose you can guess what happened next. Yes, that's right. My housemate almost hit me with a half-dead squirrel he threw out the window. Fortunately, he was able to get over the humor of the situation to euthanize the squirrel, wrap it in some plastic bags (which he apparently found AFTER throwing it out the window) and drop the whole thing in the trash.
And that, apparently, was the end of the thrilling escapade of the Invisible Ben and the Menace of the Airborne Rodent. Be sure not to miss our next episode: "Acorn-ucopia of Riches" or "Congratulations, It's a Squirrel!"
Postscript: The following day I discovered that the story was not quite over. The squirrel had escaped and appeared to have clawed its way back to its former landing spot. When I left to visit my family in Philadelphia, it was still lying there. On my return it was gone. Perhaps the cat got hungry or perhaps another housemate noticed it and returned it to its garbage-can sarcophagus. In either case, it was clearly the last adventure for that particular flying squirrel.
Rodents and I have never really gotten along. Whether the mice who used to scurry around in my Underwood classroom or the bat that invaded my bedroom here at the Invisible Commune, I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan. Contrary to what my students might have claimed after surveying the array of specimens mounted above my desk, in actuality I am not bound by some sort of vendetta against the bright-eyed or the bushy-tailed. So long as they do not invade the spaces where I live or work, I have no major gripe with most of nature's creatures. The trees and bushes surrounding the Invisible Commune are fair game. I leave them alone and they leave me alone.
But my faith in my nonaggression pact with the area's fauna was thrown into serious jeopardy this afternoon. After a long afternoon of reading in the library, I was looking forward to getting home, making dinner, and because I'm in graduate school, doing even more reading. As I stumbled wearily up the driveway, however, I suddenly heard a strange noise about a foot and a half ahead of me.
There, lying on the gravel driveway ahead of me was something disturbing. It was a squirrel. A twitching, bleeding, and hairless squirrel which had apparently lost the fight against gravity rather severely and was still alive, though barely.
My first thought was something along the lines of an expletive followed by "That was very close to hitting me. " After wondering if I had committed one offense too many against rodentkind, I started pondering what exactly could lead to this squirrel's sudden appearance. After all, this squirrel didn't suddenly wake up after an afternoon nap and decide to pull out its hair and launch a kamikaze attack on me. Things like that just don't happen outside of Far Side cartoons. I thought. Clearly squirrels don't just plummet out of trees for no reason. But there didn't seem to be any large birds of prey around to have dropped it from fifty feet up and thanks to basic rules regarding how electrical circuits are completed, the power lines running up to the house were not responsible either. There wasn't even an anthropomorphized moose with a penchant for puns.
My reverie on the subject of flying squirrels was cut short, however, by the sudden appearance of one of my housemates wearing a pair of light blue rubber gloves. After I informed him of what was going on, he burst out laughing...and once he filled me in, I started to get the joke. Apparently, with the onset of spring, the household cat has taken to going hunting. Sometimes, as a sign of good faith, she'll bring back her prey and lay at the feet of own of us like a good vassal should. Over spring break, she left a dead bird on a bedroom floor. This week, it seems, marked the start of squirrel season. And what better way to celebrate then with a ceremonial gift to the lords of the manor (or...a contribution to the Invisible Commune, if you prefer).
So the squirrel in question was delivered, bloodied and broken upon my housemate's carpet. The obvious reaction? Dispose of it! But how...? There needed to be some way to get the animal outside with only minimum handling. Walking it down several flights of stairs would take too much time...and apparently there weren't any bags or what have you to put it in. No, the solution came (as I reconstructed it in my head later) like a beam of light through the nearby bathroom window. A window which conveniently overlooked the driveway...
I suppose you can guess what happened next. Yes, that's right. My housemate almost hit me with a half-dead squirrel he threw out the window. Fortunately, he was able to get over the humor of the situation to euthanize the squirrel, wrap it in some plastic bags (which he apparently found AFTER throwing it out the window) and drop the whole thing in the trash.
And that, apparently, was the end of the thrilling escapade of the Invisible Ben and the Menace of the Airborne Rodent. Be sure not to miss our next episode: "Acorn-ucopia of Riches" or "Congratulations, It's a Squirrel!"
Postscript: The following day I discovered that the story was not quite over. The squirrel had escaped and appeared to have clawed its way back to its former landing spot. When I left to visit my family in Philadelphia, it was still lying there. On my return it was gone. Perhaps the cat got hungry or perhaps another housemate noticed it and returned it to its garbage-can sarcophagus. In either case, it was clearly the last adventure for that particular flying squirrel.
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