If a Squirrel Falls in the Forest…

…does it make a sound? Maybe not, but it will make a big crash inside a car. (Login: Bob PW: 2345)

"Joanne Korba was driving through [Califon, NJ] just minutes after dropping her 13-year-old daughter at school.

"And then it happened.

"I was turning onto Main Street and I heard this big crash," she said… "I turned around to see who threw it," she recalled… There were no vandals in sight and the borough street was quiet. Korba's gaze shifted downward to her back seat, where the source of the mysterious "crash" lay temporarily stunned from a fall from great heights.

"It was a squirrel.

"My sunroof was open," she said. "It must have fallen from a wire."

We had one of those tightrope-walkin' squirrels, 'cept he was doin' it on purpose. One nice afternoon we heard a regular whump-thump comin' from the back yard. After it went on like forever, AHM finally went out to see what was goin' on. There was the squirrel, teeterin' his way across the cable wire. Just as he got halfway across, he let go--and landed on the convertible top of AHM's car, bouncin' around like it was a trampoline. 'Course we all figured the little twit had serious inner-ear issues. Then we saw him leap off the car, scurry up a nearby tree, hop onto the garage roof, and back on the wire--to do it all over again. Whoa!

We watched the show two more times. Then, when the Rocky-wanna' be was just lettin' go for a third bounce, AHM opened the pen and let us loose.

Never had a squirrel try usin' the convertible as a trampoline again.

"Then [Joanne] Korba thought for a moment. "What do you do when a squirrel falls in your car," she recalled saying to herself since this was her first encounter with a wild animal in her vehicle. Her thoughts quickly led to an idea.

"I pulled the car over and got out," she said.

"Borough police Chief Jeff Ollerenshaw said Korba was screaming as she stood on the Main Street sidewalk. Korba denied that characterization and said she was merely wringing her hands and wondering what to do next."

Wonderin' what to do next? Lady, it was only a friggin' squirrel! Ya' don't abandon your car and have hysterics on Main Street. If ya' gotta' scream, open all the doors and scream at the squirrel. If the little bugger doesn't get the message, open your trunk, get out the tire iron, and chip shot his furry ass into the next borough. Geeze Louise. If this is an example of how the citizenry would behave if we were invaded, we are in deep rodent do-do.

Then again, the liberal northeast seems overrun with urban chickens.

"(Eddie) Arfe is a prosperous attorney who lives in the East River co-ops and is mild mannered, reasonable, even affectionate about most areas of life, save one: Mr. Arfe loses his good humor when it comes to squirrels.

“I went to put some garbage in the trash receptacles in the park,” Eddie Arfe recalls his evening of terror, “when all of a sudden something hit me in the chest and bounced off. That was a squirrel. Needless to say, it was quite frightening.”

Oh, quaaate…quaaate…

"In previous generations, squirrels used to be intimidated” by the presence of people, says Arfe. “If you fed them they came up, but otherwise they ran away from you. Apparently we’re cultivating a breed of squirrels that are not frightened of humans.”

No, you've cultivated a squirrel welfare state with free handouts, idiot, and now you're payin' the price, just like those bleedin' hearts in Russia.

"[O]n a recent Saturday afternoon a squirrel ran into a local synagogue during a talk by the rabbi, and caused considerable panic."

Why does that last sentence make me think of a Gene Wilder movie?

posted by Harrison at 11:32 PM