Squirrels

I have an ongoing feud with squirrels.  Once at my friend Mandy's house, she and I were watching a squirrel who was just hanging out on the other side of the sliding screen door.  Mind you, we were just WATCHING the squirrel, not harassing or taunting it.  All of the sudden, the squirrel LEAPS into the air, attaches itself to the screen, bares its teeth, shakes its head and cusses at us loudly in squirrel-speak.  Scared the friggin' bejesus out of us.

My little sister tells a story of how a squirrel ran at her friend, climbed up his leg, across his arm and bit his hand.  If that isn't evil, then what the heck is?

Once, at AU, I was sitting on a bench, eating a boxed lunch, minding my own business, when an AU patented Black Ninja Squirrel (I think they breed them there special to be college-student resistant) leaped from a tree, 50-yard-dashed over to my bench, vaulted up, wrapped his greedy little arms around my ham sandwich and made a dash for it Mission Impossible style.  What the heck, folks!?!?!

UPDATE:  A friend sent me this story of truly ridiculous squirrel antics:

getting ready for a run one day I went to go to the bathroom, lifted the lid to the toilet, and there was a squirrel, butt stuck down the hole, front paws paddling furiously to keep his mouth above water, brown stuff (shit perhaps) all around.  I went and told my Dad there was a squirrel in the toilet, he sort of ignored me, so i tapped his shoulder and told him to come to the bathroom.  We used a garden shovel to get him out, put him in a plastic garbage bag and had to take him outside (there had been a squirrel in the basement a few years before who had wreaked some serious havoc and my mom didn't want to take any chances) After drying him off the best we could with a hair dryer and a towel, we released him back to the happy land of trees outside and headed out on our run.

I asked the obvious question about how the squirrel had gotten into the toilet in the first place (a bad prank gone wrong?  Squirrel refused to go au natural outside?).  She says they think he climbed down the vent in the roof and that he swam down the pipes into the toilet (she said they had a hard time flushing the toilet for a while before he showed up...I should say so....).  She said she experienced some mild trauma from the experience, refusing to use that toilet for a long time afterward.  Oh, man, the squirrels are coming to get us, making even our more sacred house hold appliances sinister!!!

Now I've got this knitted Squirrel on Wheels (from Knitting Mochimochi...aka best book ever) rolling around my bedroom making a nuisance of herself.

Sneaking into my closet to try on some boots. 

Scampering across my bed to wake me up when I'm trying to nap...creepy right?

 Yea, look at me as if I'm crazy, but I don't seem to be the only to feel this way about squirrels.  Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, one of my favorite knitters/bloggers also has this issue.  In a recent post she was talking about squirrels that had broken into her attic to rummage through her personal affects and noted:

"This surprised me less than it would someone who does not have a longstanding antagonistic relationship with squirrels."

I agree, Ms. Pearl-McPhee.  Not surprising at all coming from sneaky little rodents.

Some people aren't so convinced of squirrels' conniving natures.  Lion Brand Studios even seems to have a pair of studio squirrels.  And my mother tells the story of her brothers' pet squirrel that they carried in a parade (on a litter, no less) as kids.   I think this is bizarre behavior, even for small children.

See, they steal your heart.  But watch out, next they will steal your lunch....