Kamikaze Squirrel
Last Thursday morning, I found myself out on 9th St., taking out the garbage before the weekly garbage pickup. My son had forgotten to do it before he left for school - again.
As I hoisted the yellow bag into the roll cart, I heard a loud thud behind me. I turned around to see who was sneaking up behind me, but no one was there.
I thought about this for a moment, knowing I had definitely heard something besides the voices in my head and the nonstop playlist that seems to go on in my brain day and night. That is when I saw the squirrel.
Right across the narrow spanse of 9th St., lay a full grown male squirrel. He was spread-eagle in the grass, eyes open. I went in for a closer look, trying to figure out what happened to the critter. Did he fall out of a tree? Looking up, I saw the culprit. Instead of falling out of a tree, he had fallen off a transformer/power pole. The poor thing had gotten himself zapped, fully fried. My next thought was “fresh meat”, for the cats of course. I figured they would find him soon enough.
As I walked back across the road, I couldn’t help thinking how fleeting is life. That poor squirrel never saw it coming. He had probably crossed that power line many times before, but apparently his luck ran out. I also felt lucky that he didn’t happen to land across the street, on my head. As I had my back turned, I would have never seen it coming, either.
Later, I told my kids, “aren’t you glad that I wasn’t killed by a falling squirrel”? They assured me they were thankful that I survived, but it sure would have been an interesting story to tell. My daughter did say that she would have substituted an anvil for the squirrel when she told the details, though. My son would have changed it from a ‘falling dead squirrel’ to ‘attacked by a squirrel’. I’m just glad I wasn’t able to provide them with their latest tall tale.
I have actually seen this happen before. One day out of no where the power goes out and we have no idea why. When we go outside there is a fried squirrel on the ground right under the transformer! Weird how squirrels can make your power go out lol. I loved the story. Thanks.