SQUIRREL HUNTING IN RANDOLPH COUNTY

By:  Randy Gillis

First of all, I like animals.  I’m not fanatical about it, but they’re cute.  That aside, what the holy hell is up with the squirrels?  I admit I do get a rush of satisfaction when I hear one pop under my tire, but that’s only after years of nearly wrapping my car around trees, road signs, and guard rails trying to avoid hitting the little bastards!  They just won’t cooperate!  They get half-way across the road, stop, run back, stop, head back to the other side, stop, run around in circles in the middle of the lane, all the while I’m barreling down on them at 60+ mph, squalling tires, clenching teeth and praying to the squirrel god that maybe this time…..

I finally had to accept that squirrels are intelligently designed tire tread tartar.  Now it’s “pop,” yes!  That’s one less rat with a high-end exterior option package to worry about (if it wasn’t for the damn tail they’d be skinny possums).  You can justify anything if you put your mind to it.  And, as has oft been quoted to me, vermin is vermin no matter how high the heel.

Of course all of this makes what happened to me the other day seem somewhat poetic.  I was on my way home from work when a squirrel fell onto my windshield.  I travel on a country road and lately the squirrels have been raining out of the trees.  It’s probably global warming.  But anyway, this one was still alive.  I swear he was trying to get into the car through the window!  I was weaving all over the road, screaming like a…..well, I was very upset, as you can imagine.  I finally turned on the windshield wipers, but that only seemed to piss him off.

By this time I’m starting to get a little miffed myself.  I finally had to pull the car over.  Another car passed me and its windshield was covered with squirrels!  The old woman inside was screaming like a…..well, she was very upset, as you can imagine.

So, I march around to the front of my car and the squirrel turns on me and leans back on his hind feet!  I’m thinking, I’m gonna have to kick this squirrel’s ass.  He inhaled deeply and let loose with a pathetic little squirrel-growl.  I cocked my head to one side and actually heard myself scream…”you want a piece of me, bitch!” which only exacerbates any situation.          

Well, he did want a piece of me!  The next thing I know, he leaps off the hood of my car and directly on to my neck!  So now I’m rolling around on the ground, screaming like a……like a man with a squirrel on his neck.  Why is it that when you’re on the ground wrestling with a wild animal, you decide it would be helpful to start kicking like a Rockette (with impressive flexibility for a 55 y/o if I do say so myself)?   But everyone does that, right?  Anyway, the evil hell-beast decides to start running laps around my chest.  Thinking that it works with fire, I decided to stop, drop, and roll……down a small embankment.  I grossly underestimated squirrel agility.

I somehow managed to get back to my feet while swinging my arms like a high-school cheerleader.  I’m not sure why I was so broad with my flailing, as the squirrel had nestled under my chin.  My hands knew perfectly well where the squirrel was but the cowards didn’t want to go in for the grab.  I held my breath, forced my limbs to man up, reached up, clutched the little shit and punted him to the wood’s edge.  I felt like a football player just after making the winning homerun.  Now the screams came from a place of triumph.  “Yeah baby!  That’s how we roll in Sophia!  Go tell your little squirrel friends, you just got Randified!”  I may have even danced a little. 

This is where it gets creepy.  As he is walking into the woods (with not a mark on him to show for it) he turns and looks at me and, I kid you not, he was smiling.  He knew he had the last laugh.  For you see, you don’t really feel joint injuries during the adrenaline rush of a life-or-death situation.  You feel them the next day.  And I did.  But for now, victory was mine.  I stared into the gapping, hellish jaws of carnivorous squirrel terror and came out the other side. 

Oh, and the old lady I saw earlier was my neighbor.  She called me while I was reloading my weapon (I was at the gas station filling up my car and dousing myself with squirrel urine) and invited me over for a fresh pot of squirrel stew.  I politely declined as I had a date with a cocky little rodent on Old Lexington Road.