Buddy the Squirrel

Growing up, my house always had some kind of recovering injured animal in it. I think my mom is some cross-version of a horse whisperer / animal loving Snow White. You know that scene in Shrek the Third where Snow White sings Led Zeppelin's The Immigrant Song? I immediately though of my mom and her army of wild animals - birds, turtles, hermit crabs, etc. We always had baby birds living on our porch because they'd fallen out of neighborhood trees. My mom would use a syringe to feed them baby bird food and we'd take turns playing with random recovering birds on our porch.

One time I even caught a chipmunk, but let me tell you, those are not fun pets. I think I had it in a gerbil cage for all of one hour before I let it go - I thought it would have a heart attack trying to run out of the clear plastic cage. But the craziest pet we ever had was a pet squirrel named Buddy.

When I was away in college, one of my best high school friends found an abandoned baby squirrel. And what did she do - she called my mom. Next thing you know, my mom is taking care of a squirrel - after calling animal control to see if they carried rabies, of course. She named it Buddy and it lived in a dog carrier on our porch. Seriously. He'd even crawl under the towels we'd given him and circle the cage like a dog deciding where to plop down to sleep. I first met Buddy when my parents came to visit me freshman year. My mom carried him in some straw-like purse thing and he'd poke his head out from under a towel every few minutes. I'm just happy the dorm staff didn't realize my mom was smuggling a wild animal into their facilities.

I came home for the holidays to find that Buddy would crawl up my mom like a tree and then run, jumping off her outstretched arm, onto my 6'3 father. When I arrived, Buddy was thrilled to see that a third human tree had sprouted for him to scamper up and jump off of. It was just short of freaking crazy to have a squirrel run up your back and soar off of an outstretched limb. But he was a chill little guy and this was life at my house.

After a while, Buddy grew up and it was time to set him free into the wild again. It took him a few days to stop coming back to the porch each night to crawl into "his" dog carrier. He'd still hang around our backyard and even come running if my mom ever called out his name. He'd been gone for several weeks before I came home for summer break from college. I was dressed and on my way to work one morning when I felt I was being watched going to my car. I looked over and saw a squirrel staring at me on the sidewalk. "Buddy?", I said.

I was immediately transformed into the human tree, with a squealing squirrel running up my side, through my hair, and around my neck. OH MY GOD. This was de-house-broken, I know how to hunt my own food, going to cut you with my claws, Buddy. I flipped out because he wouldn't get off me, he'd peed on my shoulder, and seemed to be ready to claw my eyes out. I managed to grab his body, fling him several feet away from me, and run inside the house just as he was about to get in behind me. I'll never forget the shrieking sound he made when I had to tosh him like a bean bag into the yard.

So needless to say, I am TERRIFIED of squirrels now. No joke. If I see a squirrel in a park, or on a campus, or even near my car, I freeze, trying to figure out the quickest way to get inside a building or a car. Even if a squirrel is just running around a tree or picking up an acorn, if it so much as looks at me, I grab the nearest person (usually my husband) and hide behind them. So if you're ever walking with me and I have a panic attack, just look around and see if there are any Buddy's walking around.

I See Spiders

Most people don't know this about me, but I see spiders. ALL THE TIME. There have been many times when my husband and I will be watching tv and I'll randomly jerk my head in one direction for no apparent reason. Why? Because I swear I see a spider out of the corner of my eye. I mean seriously, this happens at least twice a week, probably more. Most of the time there's nothing there and I know I must be losing my mind - or have some form of visual turrets.

But I do ACTUALLY see a spider about 40% of the time. Case in point: I'm doing a little house-sitting (house invading is more like it) this week. I'd like to preempt this with a very large "I'm sorry" to the couple who will probably rather not know the story I'm about to tell. The first night in the house was totally fine, I didn't have any head twitches of the spider persuasion. However, the second night, yikes. I really don't like spiders, really really. This may stem from seeing Arachnophobia way too many times as a youngster. Anyway, I have a box of stuff (ok, boxes, plural) in this house, sitting on the floor in the hall. I casually walk past it and immediately do the head spasm thing. OH my LORD. I'm pretty sure that thing could eat my face off.

On the very bottom edge of the box is the largest spider I have ever encountered. It's huge and brown and has scary legs and I'm convinced it's a brown recluse. I'm gonna die - because they bite you and then your skin starts to eat itself - I know for a fact because a guy in my business class got bitten by one and you should have seen this poor guy's hand eat itself away. Nasty. I freak out. I'm barefoot and the only item nearby to beat the living shit out of this thing is my brush. No way, then it truly will eat my face. I do a quick look around, half expecting to be Alice in Wonderland and a magical bottle of spider repellent appear saying "Use Me". No luck. What do I find? The best new bug repellent I've ever met: Shout! As in - gets stains out of your laundry "Shout!". I sprayed the spider once and it immediately balled up, fell off the box, and died. Shout is my new best friend. Me -1, Spiders -0.

Ah, but round 2 was only one day away. I get home from work to find the largest house centipede I've ever seen on the wall in the kitchen.

Right now my spider seeing accuracy is at about 110% and I need it to be -500%. The only thing I hate more than house centipedes are silverfish and those scary brown camel crickets...



Animals like this just shouldn't be allowed inside a human dwelling place. I didn't have the courage (or height) to kill this one so I just ignored it. And now I live in fear because the million legged creature disappeared from site an hour later. I'm hoping the mercy I showed the centipede will make its way through the spider nation so I don't get ganged up on for killing mister brown recluse. I'd love to keep my face covered with skin.