Each day I spend in this city, I am more convinced that city squirrels here are Darwinning their way closer and closer to humans. Maybe I never paid them much mind before I spent time living in the city, but the counrty squirrels just don't seem the same. A couple examples:
I live on the third floor of a brick building. Last summer, I had an air conditioner on the window of my bedroom. I also got a incredibly mischievious kitty. After I had left one day, my boyfriend was still sound asleep in bed. He woke to some scratching at the window frame. Half asleep, he stumbled over and peeked over the huge back of the air conditioner. All he could see was some gray fur. In his daze, he thought the kitty had somehow squeezed her way out onto the window ledge. Starting to panic, he pulled the accordian like plastic that seals the space between the air conditioner and the window frame inward. He reached out and grabbed the kitty's body. Realizing the crack he made wasn't big enough to pull her body through, and becoming coherent, he bent down to get a better look. He was holding a freakin' squirrel! Our cat wasn't out on the ledge that day, but this summer she did make it out there for a long weekend when we were out of town!
This summer I was watching the squirrels out my window, when I saw a little squirrel battle over a piece of coffee cake, or some kind of donut looking thing all glazed with white sugar. Three squirrels were going for the same piece from a dumpster. Finally, the big fatty scared the other two off and scaled the side of the building up one level. He perched himself on the ledge and proceeded to dig in, holding the cake with both hands and resting on his haunches. The other two squirrels were milling about below watching the fatty longingly. After a few minutes, the fatty must have heard something inside the building because he jumped slightly, losing his grip on the cake. It fell, as he watched with a humanlike expression of fear, regret, and disbelief as his dessert fell to the two skinny squirrels below. I couldn't help but feel good about that one. I'm always rooting for the little ones.
Today I saw a squirrel resting on the edge of an overflowing gargabe can on campus. With both hands, he held a giant red lollipop, slurping away. Ha.
Greedy fat squirrels! Maybe Bush and his people will drop something off a ledge someday. They should change the Republican elephant to a squirrel.