Mari Ness - Squirrels and lunch:

I hate having lunch with someone who is staring at me through sunglasses. But this isn't that rant. Rather, this is about the squirrels. Or rather about one squirrel.

I currently work, as noted, in Boca, a town with several good qualities, I suppose, but one showing an alarming lack of concern regarding the aggressive cuteness of its resident squirrels. Don't underestimate this: with my own eyes I have seen several otherwise honest, sensible people see a squirrel, stop everything they are doing, and squeak, "Ooooh, how cute! Camera! Let's get it a cookie from Starbucks!* I so need a camera for moments like these."

(Some of you are immediately going to object to my description of my coworkers and friends as honest and sensible. You may have a point there, but still, these squirrels have an Evil Influence.)

Even I, a stalwart soldier in the squirrel war, must admit that I have...ahem...said....No. I won't reveal what I've said. I will admit that I have spent significant time watching them. Just, of course, for safety purposes. Really.

Which brings us to today's lunch.

My lunch companion and I were dining outside at Boneheads, a restaurant located dangerously close to a Starbucks and conveniently across the street from my office, minding our own business, when a squirrel started to dance with a large stick. By "large" I mean about one inch thick and slightly longer than the squirrel, forked on one end. The squirrel loved this stick, and by loved, I mean, occasionally landed on and wiggled on the stick in a manner not safe to describe in a semi-family friendly blog. This sort of activity often resulted in the squirrel flipping over and having the stick in its little paws, where it
tried to juggle the stick, then aggressively attack the stick, chewing on it, then hop around the stick, then chew on the stick, and then return to the not entirely family friendly activities. (I'll just note that unless all of my biology classes have lied, this sort of activity will also not result in the production of little squirrels, which just makes it more unfamily friendly.)

This was mesmerizing enough, and resulted in several cries of "Oooh, look at that cute squirrel!" from a few diners, along with, "Um, is that squirrel doing what I think it's doing to the stick?" from a few more observant diners.

This sort of attention is bad for squirrels that know just how cute they are. This particular squirrel halted its jumping activities, looked up, saw the diners, and put on a disarming, utterly cute squirrel look, the sort of look that reassures everyone looking at the squirrel that the squirrel is completely harmless and not about to run through the diners
leaping over the feet of one of them before returning to attack the stick and giving us another cute look and jumping up to leap over our table before running back to the stick and returning to its activities, presumably hoping that the stick had been suitably impressed by all this.

No, no, the said feet were not mine. They belonged to a diner at a neighboring table, who has just had her faith in the cuteness of squirrels severely threatened.

My lunch companion doubled over.

"I...have...to...give...it....your....fries...."

"My fries?"

"I just have zucchini...."

The squirrel, however, preferred the taste of stick to the taste of fries (this is no reflection on Boneheads, which actually makes relatively decent seasoned fries), and eventually disappeared up a tree. Just as well; otherwise, we might not have finished lunch.

*As far as I know, Starbucks has retained a strict neutrality in the squirrel war, not expressing any specific opinions on squirrels one way or another, but they do strongly endorse the purchase of baked products, if without specifying squirrel use.