What happens when you wake up with a squirrel on your chest (648 hits)
Category: HumorRating: 0.57 on 7 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by John <Henryv1598.at.aol.com> (View user info) at 2005-02-10 21:29:08 EST
I'm a long-time reader/lurker, first time poster... hoping people aren't too harsh in their reviews.
Having read a couple entertaining posts about mishaps involving squirrels lately, I thought I'd relate my own misadventure with the little furry demons. I'm rather fascinated with them. I grew up in the desert in California, which in my subsequent travels might be the only place on the planet that doesn't have them. I never saw a single squirrel growing up, but everywhere I've lived since then they're everywhere. I find them adorably cute, and insanely pesky. That said, on with my story.
This happened when I was in college in the Boston area, circa 1994/5.
Ok... there I was, minding my own business, Chad was talking to lesbians in chat rooms... (maybe I'll explain in another post who Chad is and what his deal is with lesbians. For the group of friends I had in school, this is the traditional opening to many a story.)
The dorm room I lived in during my first year on campus overlooked a grassy area. In that grassy area was a rather modest-sized tree. In that modest-sized tree lived a squirrel (quite possibly more than one). That tree also came right up to my window. I could pretty much reach out and grab a branch if I so desired. And this is where our story truly begins...
One night I was sleeping in my lower-bunk bed. On paper I had a roommate, who officially slept in the upper bunk. In reality he slept in his girlfriend's bunk, except for a few days out of the month. Because our heaters worked way too well, and we had no controls to adjust them , I kept a window open when it wasn't raining or snowing. This was late-October or early-November, as I remember, so the heat was definitely on and I was frying. I ended up moving my room around to put my bed next to the window and kept that window open most of the time. I should add that there were no screens in these windows.
Round about dawn, I woke to an odd feeling on my chest. Opening my eyes with a start, I found a gray, furry varmint sitting on top of my chest/stomach area (right around my solar plexus region). To put it simply, I freaked out. When you wake up and find that you have a gray furry rodent sitting on you, you're not likely to react nonchalantly. So I freaked. Of course... freaking out is not the best way to deal with a squirrel. Squirrels are, to put it bluntly, jittery to begin with. Freaking out in front of (or underneath, as the case may be) a jittery furry rodent is not the best way to make friends. Instead of calmly introducing myself, hading him a friendly nut, and patting him on his head, I yelped and bolted upright. In bolting upright, I thus propelled the squirrel forward.
I have not studied the physics of squirrels, but I do not believe that they are subject to the same physical laws of acceleration, deceleration, momentum, or inertia that most other bodies in our universe are governed by (squirrels appear to have a special waiver concerning the afore mentioned laws of physics). The momentum imparted by my body to a normal object that lay on my torso, say a pencil or stapler, by the action of bolting-upright, would normally propel said object only a few feet at the most. Due to aerodynamic drag (or due to the lack of aerodynamics), the velocity of the object would decrease as it flies forward, and gravity would pull it downward. In the end, the final distance would be very short indeed.
Not so with squirrels. Somehow they can multiply the force imparted at an exponential rate. Thus, a force of 2 lbs per meter per second becomes 4lbs of force after the first second, then 16lbs after the third, and so on. Of course, a squirrel does not way 2lbs. So the squirrel rapidly accelerates past mach 1 and into the sub-light region.
Now imagine this animal confined to a 2-person dorm room?
The squirrel bounced off walls, running all over the place, and knocking everything over that could possibly be knocked over and even a few things that couldn't possibly be knocked over. Again, squirrel physics at work. The furry missile flew around the room in a gray blur, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake.
I stood gaping and continued to freak.
After a moment, he (I'm assuming, by its destructive nature, that it was a he) came to rest underneath the bed, and I came to my senses. I needed to get this thing out of here, and fast. I thought of opening the door to my room, but decided, since this was a Christian college, I shouldn't visit this kind of destruction upon my neighbors, even if some of them deserved it (God would later smite them for their trespasses). No, I needed to deal decisively, but humanely, with this hellsquirrel (doesn't quite have the same ring to it as hellhound, does it?). I found a box and decided to try to lure him out with a handful of pistachio nuts I had from a care package my parents sent me.
He didn't take the bait, but I apparently spooked him enough that he darted out from under my bed.
Finally, after some more bouncing off walls, and finding more things to break, he re-discovered the open window and eventually I chased him out, leaving my dorm room a demolished wreck in his wake. I'm sure he had a good time relating this story to his evil little squirrel friends.
User Reviews
Submitted by BrittInToledo (user info) at 2005-02-14 23:51:00 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
skirtles rock.
Submitted by MANICMOTHER (user info) at 2005-02-11 20:10:45 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Love squirrels, hate physics
Submitted by Chinaski (user info) at 2005-02-10 22:18:38 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
really boring.
Submitted by DogWings (user info) at 2005-02-10 22:16:41 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
it was probably an alien in disguise
Submitted by forensicgirl3 (user info) at 2005-02-10 22:12:54 EST (#)
Ranking: 1
Hehehehe, I liked it. But yes, next time throw in how it jumped out your window with your jock strap hooked to its tail or something.
Submitted by Tigre (user info) at 2005-02-10 22:09:52 EST (#)
Ranking: -2
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-02-10 21:57:32 (#)
Ranking: 0
Boring story, but not badly written. Next time add a picture & spice the story up a bit.....
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Yes, like porn, or squirrel boobies. Oh, and for saying it was your first post, here is your obligatory -2.
Submitted by kai070169 (user info) at 2005-02-10 21:57:32 EST (#)
Ranking: 0
Boring story, but not badly written. Next time add a picture & spice the story up a bit.....