Friday, April 11, 2008

I shared my lunch with a squirrel today

I perhaps should start with an explanation of the squirrels on UM's campus. They are large and unafraid. Blame it on the Squirrel Club I suppose. It's a club that once a week and gives out peanuts to the squirrels on campus. It's become quite the tradition on our campus - it's also pretty funny to see people spreading out over the Diag trying to find squirrels who will take the peanut right from their hand. However, I think perhaps that hunt shouldn't be too hard these days.

It's is beautiful out today - sunny and in the 70s so I naturally decided to eat my lunch outside. I grabbed Wendy's from the League and sat myself down outside across from the Bell Tower and the League. I was eating away and then a girl who was walking by warned me that I had two squirrels coming up behind me. My first thought was I was about to get jumped by gangster squirrels. Gangsters they were not but they were certainly getting ready to jump into my Wendy's bag and make off with my fries. I put the bag between my legs and thought that would be the end of it. Oh no, they jumped down onto the sidewalk and crept closer and closer. So I shooed them and it seemed to work. Off they bounced into the shrubs where I heard squeaks and squeals a few minutes later. Once I finished my sandwich and focused on my fries, one of them crept back up along side of me. Maybe they were gangsters as this one seemed to have off'ed his buddy - I never saw him again.

So, this little guy (and he was pretty little by UM standards to be honest - meaning he could definitely beat the squirrels at home and back at GBurg to a pulp) came up and sat along side of me and just looked at me and of course, I am a sap and figured, he's already corrupted by other stupid people so how could one little fry hurt? To my credit, I did try a bit of onion left from my sandwich first thinking that would be a bit better for him but to no avail (in fact, he looked at me like I had tried to offer him rat poison) so I handed out a fry. He took it from me easily and settled right down next to me and started to eat. We proceeded in this fashion, each time he kept getting a little closer to me, coming up over my jacket and even reaching onto my leg for his next fry. I know this was bad - I know - the environmentalist in me was up in arms but he was so adorable and like I said, I don't think this is the first time he's shared a medium fry before. So, I ate lunch with a squirrel today. One more experience to cross off my list of life to do's.

Oh, and PS, you know how there is that joke that you give a man a dog or a baby, every female in a five block radius descends upon him? Apparently, if you give a girl a squirrel a similar phenomenon happens. However, note to self, the guys attracted by squirrels are not quite what I am looking for. What woodland creature should I try next?

No comments: