It’s Only A Squirrel After All

We are all on this planet for a short time. Hopefully, we are loved, get an opportunity to love, find something that engages us and if we are very lucky we can have a positive impact on the world and those around us.

A few years ago, while I was on holidays from work, I was sitting in the living room watching TV and since it wasn’t very compelling television my attention drifted to the window. I have always been drawn to windows, especially when I was in school, which is why my desk was always just about as far away from the window as the teachers could put me. I am sure if they could put me out in the hall and still pretend to teach me, they would have. In university, I had an English Lit class that was basically on the first floor and it had these large gothic windows that on a nice day would be open. On one particularly nice day the windows were open and the professor was droning on and on. My buddy Gary and I decided that not only could we leave through the window, but that we should, and did. Windows will set you free! Right Mr. Gates?

So as I looked out the window all those many years ago, I saw two squirrels, one grey and the other black that were chasing each other up one branch and down the other. They looked as if they were having fun. Eventually, they caught up with each other and started to make love. Isn’t that nice? I immediately got my camera and took a few pictures. Animal love is a sight that I as a city boy, doesn’t see as often as I would like. The two lovers then switched places. Huh? Well, why not? I am sure that a gay squirrel is a happy squirrel. Watching them made me happy!

Well, I had these pictures of animal lust and at the time was experimenting with Photoshop. I thought that if I were to put my bosses head on the “pitcher” squirrel and one of my co-workers picture on the “catcher”, it would be really funny. Kemner and Cecil looked as if they could have been squirrels in a past life. I printed up a few pictures on regular paper and posted them around the depot when I returned to work. For some reason that I can’t explain, I was kind of hoping to get suspended for a week or two. Unfortunately, it never happened.

Well, to bring us up to the present. I was raking the leaves and twigs on the lawn today when I came across the disembodied head of “Kemner”. I was a little shocked! He was so young and should have had many years of nut munching ahead of him. I suspected that no good would come from the way that he jumped from one branch to the next, without a care in the world. What I can’t figure out, is what exactly happened to his body? You would think that whatever carnivore got to him, would have taken both the head and the body. They usually come attached.

I don’t know what kind of funeral rites that rodents have, but I muttered a few words of respect and then kicked the head into the hedge. Hey, it’s only a squirrel after all...