Tuesday, August 5, 2008
Squirrel Story
Ten years ago, I was racing time trials on bikes with Gena, and I ended up losing because when I was coming down Ashmont Street, a squirrel darted in front of me and I had to swerve to avoid hitting it. The feeling of running over a squirrel's spine with a bike tire, which I have never felt, is what I think about whenever I am biking near squirrels. So today, I cut through Deering Oaks on my way downtown, and these two little squirrels, little teenage squirrels, freak out and make a run across the path. The first one makes it, but the other smacks into my moving tire and then runs alongside it as I'm braking, trying to squeeze underneath the front of it. I ran over its paw, finally stopped myself, and it climbed up a tree. I yelled "Stupid squirrel!" at it for being a stupid squirrel and further traumatized it.
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2 comments:
The only thing worse than roadkill and killing animals with our superior technology is probably maiming them and just not killing them all the way.
A friend and I were driving to the store in New Orleans this past spring when this happened to us. Our car didn't personally hit anything but as we pulled up to the intersection of Freret and Calhoun, the truck to our right did hit an animal.
It really wasn't the driver's fault at all, really, because how can you prevent a dumb dog from deciding to make a pass between your front and back tires? You can't. You can only shudder as you heat a thump and bloodcurdling yelp.
The yelp was then followed by terrible whimpering as the dog listed away to hide out of sight, away from where any of us could see where it went. The quick chain of events surprised us all and when the light changed, the traffic startled us back to moving and we continued on to get groceries, left completely unsure about the fate of that dumb dog.
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