I never dreamed slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a
residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous! .Little
did I suspect...
I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns
and slow traffic. As I passed an on coming car, a brown, furry
missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in
front of me.
It was a squirrel, and it must have been trying to run across the
road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast,
but there was no time to brake or avoid it -- it was that close. I
hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but
a squirrel should pose no danger to me.
I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never
fear.
Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves.
Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was
standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with
steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes.
His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and
leapt!
I was pretty sure the scream was Squirrel for "Bonzai!" or
maybe "Die, you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing
short of spectacular...
He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me
squarely in the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not
know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies
along for the attack.
Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of
activity.
As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and
jeans, this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little
tornado was doing some damage!
Picture a large man on a huge black-and-chrome cruiser, dressed in
jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down
a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a
squirrel.
And losing...
I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally
managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil
rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the right
curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The
matter should have ended right there.
It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of
the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I
could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But this
was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry
squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH!
Twisted Evil
Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and,
with the force of my throw, swung around and with a resounding thump
and an amazing impact, landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his
rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also
managed to take my left glove with him! The situation was not
improved, not improved at all.
His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was
startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the
throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars,
and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my
right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle
of a Valkyrie can have only one result.
Torque.
This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at
it.
The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement.
The squirrel screamed in anger.
The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy.
I screamed in ... well... I just plain screamed.
Now picture a large man on a huge black-and-chrome cruiser, dressed
in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather
glove, and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a
quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of
death on his back.
The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.
With the sudden acceleration, I was forced to put my other hand back
on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike.
This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I
really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked
car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the
throttle...my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to
mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive
power of the big cruiser.
About this time, the squirrel decided I was not paying sufficient
attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant
NAZI attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got
INSIDE my full-face helmet with me.
As the face plate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I
am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect
on the squirrel, however. The RPMs on the Dragon maxed out (since I
was not bothering with shifting at the moment), so her front end
started to drop.
Now picture a large man on a huge black-and-chrome cruiser, dressed
in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather
glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large,
puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face
helmet. By now the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.
Finally I got the upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again,
pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I
could. This time it worked .. sort of.
Spectacularly sort-of, so to speak.
Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have
pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your
windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge
black-and-chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping
in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at
probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by,
and with all his strength throws alive squirrel grenade into your
police car.
I heard screams.
This time they weren't mine...
I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the
front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded
to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross
street. I would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove
back). I really would have. Really...Except for two things.
First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit
concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on
both sides of the patrol were flung wide open. The cop from the
passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody's
front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been
in the driver's seat was standing in the street aiming a riot gun at
his own police car.
So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let
the professionals handle it" anyway.
That was one thing. The other?
Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and
upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the
squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is
one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. A somewhat
shredded patrol car...but it was all his.
I took a deep breath, turned on my turn signal, made a gentle right
turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I
decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a
whole lot of Band-Aids.
Author
Topic: The Squirrel (Read 1839 times)