I was in the lovely Washington DC this weekend and I had a little run in with, you guess it, a squirrel. I kept mentioning to my friends that I loved squirrels and thought they were so funny. This of course led to my friend, Sam, betting me $100 bucks if I would pick one up. $100? Are you kidding me? I am on an unpaid internship and $100 will give me a weeks worth of food in NY! Of course I was going to try, but with little expectation of it actually happening.
So there I was walking towards a squirrel, in-between the Vietnam Memorial and the Washington Monument, headed to the White House. To my happy surprise and Sam's utter terror, the squirrel began walking towards me. That is when I got cocky and all logic left my brain. I put my hand out to it and it came up and smelled it. Ah ha, this was going to be the easiest $100 bucks I have ever made! Not so. After a minute of trying to get the squirrel to be my friend I decided to go for it. As it took some popcorn out of my hand I reached around and grabbed at its torso. This next part is a little graphic, so if there are children reading this be warned. The squirrel and I had a moment of terror together. As I grabbed it, the squirrels animal instincts kicked in and it attacked my hands with an unexpected fierceness. Biting and scratching. I was not expecting this and I let out a loud and quite childish scream and ran for it.
The next hour I spent trying to convince Sam to give me the $100 dollars but his reasoning and made-up, after the fact, rules succeeded in convincing me that I did not deserve the money.
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| 2 days later |
As you can see the squirrel broke my skin in a few places but luckily none of it was from his bites, just his scratches. Lesson learned. And if you were wondering if I still like squirrels as much as I did in my last post, I would have to say, yes. I feel a sacred bond with them now. This will not be the end of this squirrel tale!
