The Unseen Here and
Now . . .
Stuart
Revercomb
Stuart
Revercomb is a marketing consultant and joyously married father of four
children. He seems to remember someone once telling him he ought to be
a writer. "The Unseen Here and Now" -- Thursdays.
E-MAIL
Click
Here
to
subscribe to
"Thursday's Fare"
It's A Squirrely World
It never fails. Just when you think you can sit down, relax and catch a couple of moments with that newspaper that costs you a couple of hundred bucks a year, (which is about as many minutes as you have to read per annum), something happens. The phone rings - your oldest child spills lemonade all over the kitchen - your youngest decides it's the perfect time to potty train - or a squirrel attacks your neighbor.
That's right. Yesterday it was a common squirrel attack - made upon an innocent young mom across the street and two doors down. I had just - I mean JUST sat down on our front stoop with said paper when the first indication that something had gone terribly wrong came shrieking down the avenue. It sounded somewhat like this :
"AaaaEEEEEEEEEiiiiiiii !!! AHGGGG! AHGGGG ! AaaaaEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEiiiiiiiii !!"
Scream that sequence about five times as loud as you can and you'll about have it.
At first I thought it was one of the twenty seven neighborhood girls fending off an attack from one of the fifteen 8 year old boys in the vicinity, but the sight of a neighborhood mom rapidly crossing the street, followed by another in the general direction of the screams, caused me to jump off my porch to ascertain the cause of the commotion. As soon as I cleared the Sugar Maple in our front yard I witnessed this scene: Yet another neighborhood mom was welding what appeared to be a broom at something in the grass. Every few seconds she would jump back and shriek. The other two moms had pulled up hard and were clearly keeping their distance from whatever it was that was threatening mom number one. She continued to scream.
"AaaaaEEEEEEEEEEEEEiiiiiii !! GET BACK - GET BACK !! WHAT'S WRONG WITH IT!!! Aggggghhhhhh !!!"
I'm not sure what a banshee is, much less what it sounds like, but this had to be close.
It was clear that a Dad was needed. Or at least someone willing to step between mom number 1 and her assailant. As I jogged up the street I wondered what had her on the run so successfully. "Must be a snake", I thought. But the question, "what's wrong with it?" had me wondering. As I approached the scene I could see that there was something furry in the grass. I began to envision a large rat. "Oh no", I thought, "this is not going to be pleasant." The last large rodent that made an appearance on our street had met a very ugly demise at the hands of old man Johnson and his hoe. I wasn't sure I had the stomach for a repeat performance.
But when I arrived I had to chuckle.
It was a baby squirrel - perhaps 5 weeks old. He was an adorable little thing - about 6 inches long with a big bushy tail about twice his body length. Its funny how something as commonplace as a squirrel can become so much more attractive by simply being smaller. This little squirrel had a very high "cute quotient", and moms numbers one and two were oogling and oggling as he peered cautiously over the tall grass. But he had put the full fear of God in mom number one, who finding him cute or not, was clearly prepared to send him to squirrel heaven with that broom if he stepped one paw closer. Every time she backed away he ran at her and stopped near her feet.
"Aaeeeiiiiigghhh!!!" Mom number 1 scrambled several more feet away with the squirrel in hot pursuit.
"Be Careful ! Maybe its rabid !" barked mom number 2. Mom number 3 nodded wide-eyed in agreement. The baby squirrel looked up soulfully as if to say, "Who? Me??" I stepped to within a couple of feet of the squirrel and he raced over to my feet. Mom number one beat a hasty retreat to her front porch.
"Walter", as we would later name him, showed no signs of being rabid. I slid my tennis shoe up to him and he grabbed it with both paws and began to sniff and lightly chew on it. It seemed to me he just didn't know who or what he was, and that he was extremely hungry. I think he thought one of us must be his mother.
"He likes you", said mom number 3. "Better you than me!", yelled mom number 1 from the safety of the porch. By this time about 10 neighborhood children had arrived on the scene. A chorus of, "CAN-I-PET-HIMS" erupted as they jockeyed to get a closer look. Several still kept their distance, however, having witnessed the early "attack."
A plan was needed. Mom's number 1 and 2 were left to keep the children at a safe distance from the squirrel while mom number 3 went for a "portable rabbit cage", (I'm not sure if anyone else in the world has such a thing, but mom number 3 did.) I went for a pair of fireplace gloves to safely handle Walter, and to get the Wildlife Rescue Hotline Number stored in the address book on my computer. As a father of 4 small children and a wife that would gladly nurse 2 dozen squirrels or any other animal back to health for that matter, such a number is by no means a convenience. Its as necessary as a vacuum cleaner, and used about as often. (540-587-4007.)
"Oh, Hi Mr. Revercomb - how are you?! Is it a bird this time or a rabbit...."
"Squirrel."
"Oh. O.K. Is he injured?"
"Nope - he's a baby. 5 weeks maybe."
"Got him caged?"
"Got him caged."
"Children feeding him?"
"Yup."
"No Milk of course..."
"No Milk - but a lot of nuts and bird seed... and oh yes, quite a bit of grass" (To a child everything eats grass.)
"O.K. - I'll have one of the 'squirrel girls' call in a few minutes".
Ten minutes later the first "squirrel girl" called. We made arrangements to meet in the parking lot of a local restaurant. Another "squirrel girl" called too, but I told her Sabrina had already pre-admitted "Walter." She was disappointed. Hearts of gold possesseth those "squirrel girls."
Sabrina was there when we pulled in, and after the mandatory 15 minute goodbye to the animal being saved, we released Walter to her custody. Sabrina advised us that she had several other squirrels convalescing at her place, and that Walter should be able to figure out what he was and how to be good at it under their fine tutelage. The children were thrilled to learn that Walter would have friends that could teach him the ins and outs of being a squirrel.
"He likes nuts. Feed him lots of nuts", instructed 4 year old Jane as Sabrina departed.
"I'll be sure and do that!" she yelled.
By the time we hit the cafeteria, (Mom was out shopping), and made it home and through the nightly ritual of homework and baths and stories and bed, there was little time left to read the newspaper.
Which was fine with me.
There couldn't have been a story in it as good as ours.