superbadgirl | Moose and squirrel

So, I just walked up the hill to Trader Joe's. Not very exciting, except about three blocks up I encountered a red squirrel. It ran right up to me and froze, like squirrels do when they pretend they're invisible (and if they pretend to be invisible, they are invisible) so the gigantic human-creature doesn't hurt them. I expected it to scamper away, which is usually step number 2 during a typical encounter.

It didn't scamper. It looked up at me and I looked down at it. It looked away, then looked back up.

"Hi," I said. "How are you today?"

It didn't respond verbally, but it did nudge my foot with its nose and looked up at me again. I felt a bit like I was being weighed and measured. If that's the case, I think I passed, because the squirrel still didn't run away, even though I took a step. Instead, it nudged my foot again...and then started climbing up my leg.

"No kidding, really?" I said. "For real?"

The squirrel descended my leg. Sized me up some more. Leapt at my other leg and climbed up to my forearm, where it sat for quite a while and looked at me.

It was then that I had a vision of it either 1) jumping on my face and trying to scratch my eyeballs out or 2) starting to talk, calling me Bullwinkle.

I carried on to the grocery store.