I was walking home yesterday fully engrossed in talking to myself and imagining the worst for my performance review on Wednesday (a long story that I won’t give credence to by spelling out here: suffice it to say my boss is putting the responsibility of the backlog that has been caused by our three-person office being reduced to a two-person office for almost a year now solely at my feet for no reason other than what I have to assume is personal) when I heard quite the scuffle coming from the trees across the street. As I paused to watch, two squirrels played Tag in the trees.
Except I got the distinct impression that “It” wasn’t so much wanting to tag the runner as tear his fuzzy wittle head clear off his boney itsy shoulders.
Up and down, around the trunk, from branch to branch and back again, the head squirrel kept the slightest of leads on what appeared to me to be a squirrelly serial killer. Front guy would sprint left on the top of the branch with his pursuer’s claws inches from his hind quarters, then zip a 180 to beat it back from whence he came. On rare occasions, they remained silently poised on opposite sides of the trunk, awaiting the slightest scratch from the other side of the tree that would give away the other one's position. Finally, the lead squirrel dodged and deked and skirted to the branches of another tree to safety, leaving his pursuer to chirp angrily that he’d better not return to the tree if he values his nuts.
Nuts probably started it all. One probably snatched the other’s, and the race was on. But what could have possessed the one squirrel to do whatever he did to enrage the other isn't really the point. Here I was entirely amused and entertained by what I would imagine was of the utmost and dire consequence to these two squirrels locked in mortal combat -- well, mortal chasing, at the very least. But – not to put too fine a point on it – someone else could be just as amused and entertained by the fact that I'm concerned about a performance appraisal. Like unemployed people. Or people who work in coal mines who wished the greatest danger they faced was an old-fashioned verbal confrontation scheduled from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. in the middle of a week. Or two squirrels in the bowels of a nut dispute.
Ah, nature. Always lying in wait to knock you down a few pegs whenever you think the world revolves around you and your problems.
(remind me sometime to share with you my Turtle Perspective)
Except I got the distinct impression that “It” wasn’t so much wanting to tag the runner as tear his fuzzy wittle head clear off his boney itsy shoulders.
Up and down, around the trunk, from branch to branch and back again, the head squirrel kept the slightest of leads on what appeared to me to be a squirrelly serial killer. Front guy would sprint left on the top of the branch with his pursuer’s claws inches from his hind quarters, then zip a 180 to beat it back from whence he came. On rare occasions, they remained silently poised on opposite sides of the trunk, awaiting the slightest scratch from the other side of the tree that would give away the other one's position. Finally, the lead squirrel dodged and deked and skirted to the branches of another tree to safety, leaving his pursuer to chirp angrily that he’d better not return to the tree if he values his nuts.
Nuts probably started it all. One probably snatched the other’s, and the race was on. But what could have possessed the one squirrel to do whatever he did to enrage the other isn't really the point. Here I was entirely amused and entertained by what I would imagine was of the utmost and dire consequence to these two squirrels locked in mortal combat -- well, mortal chasing, at the very least. But – not to put too fine a point on it – someone else could be just as amused and entertained by the fact that I'm concerned about a performance appraisal. Like unemployed people. Or people who work in coal mines who wished the greatest danger they faced was an old-fashioned verbal confrontation scheduled from 1:00 - 2:00 p.m. in the middle of a week. Or two squirrels in the bowels of a nut dispute.
Ah, nature. Always lying in wait to knock you down a few pegs whenever you think the world revolves around you and your problems.
(remind me sometime to share with you my Turtle Perspective)
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