Baby Road Squirrel Lives!
5/23/1

I saved a squirrel.

Now, turtles I�m used to. They�re slow. You can scoop them up and carry them to the other side of the road as they choose whether to try to shoot urine on you. Squirrels are different. So are cats.

But those are different stories. On with the show!

Leafy and I are coming back from some ultra-mundane fieldwork. We�re on the southbound service road of the parkway and then I see the little guy.

A baby squirrel, the equivalent of a five-year-old child, is hopping across the two service lanes in front of us. The traffic is clear when he does this, and he makes it to the sidewalk-like place next to the overpass wall.

This overpass is the same place we had a squirrel stranded on the exit ramp back on April 11 and that German shepherd was trotting up last Friday. This little guy was against the wall that makes up the lower western side of the exit ramp, and he was just hopping every once in a while, headed north.

He�d sit for a second and check out the concrete, then hop, he�d hop forward a foot or so. He was headed toward the intersection.

It�s not the most dangerous intersection in town, but it was a bad time for an ignorant squirrel to be exploring it. The service road was very busy. Little dude just lucked out that he made it over there without being flattened.

I tell Leafy, �I�m pulling over. I�m going to save him.�

Leafy is new. He doesn�t really know me yet. He makes some noise about the squirrel will be fine. After I rescued the squirrel, he told me how when he was once hunting raccoons, he killed four in one night. One of them had a collar on.

I pull into the entrance of a high tech military contract type firm and park in the middle of the road so that the flow of traffic can go around me on either side. I put on the hazard lights and hop out. Leafy stays. I didn�t have to tell him, but I would have if he tried to follow me. I can�t keep up with him and the squirrel in that traffic.

So, little squirrel is hopping north, slowly, against the overpass retaining wall. I approach from the other side of the service road, walking through the grass as cars whiz past, until I get parallel to him.

He spots me and assumes a firm stance.

I wait around 20 seconds for the traffic to stop. When it does, I rush him.

It is painful to think how stupid I must have looked. However, I would hope that all bystanders would realize what I was doing. One did. But I�m getting ahead of myself.

I make sure to veer a little to the north of Mr. Squirrel. He�s freaking since some giant ape is rushing him. He takes off south as I get closer to him. I get next to the wall and he heads southwest.

It must be noted that I can run faster than him. I actually had to slow down so I wouldn�t step on him.

I don�t remember if I said �Yah!� or anything as I chased him, but I might have.

I ran him across the service lanes and into some nicely trimmed hedges in front of the missile defense firm. My antics did make one car slow down. She seemed to appreciate my saving the squirrel.

I was out of breath. I got back in the van and Leafy told me his pet raccoon murder story.

So, I saved a squirrel.