electric mist

I have no clue what to call this one

The street which leads to our neighborhood has gotten exponentially busy due to (1) massive overbuilding of new condos and (2) all thirty-thousand LSU students returning to live in said condos. And apparently, when you move into a new area and there is only ONE STREET in and out of said area, the way you drive on that street is to accelerate three thousand miles per hour in the TWO FEET of space between you and the next car and then slam on your brakes to see if you can give the guy a coronary or until every driver in the lane has a full-blown post-traumatic stress disorder melt-down and takes out the oncoming lane of traffic. It's the Russian Roulette school of driving.

And it's confusing the hell out of the squirrels.

There are approximately three billion squirrels who live in our neighborhood. One billion of them are in our back yard while another billion are homesteading in our attic, but that's another story. Right now, the squirrels don't know when to cross the street without being squished, and it's starting to freak me out. The last thing I want to do is hit a squirrel, and they're so dazed from the 114 degree heat index and confused from the traffic and the trees are near enough to the road that they just randomly drop onto the hot pavement and RUN LIKE HELL, and then CHANGE THEIR MIND and then they are like frogger, trying to get across between cars and I end up shouting instructions to them because we all know squirrels can understand batshit crazy southern women.

Yesterday, Carl and I were going out to eat, with me driving. A baby squirrel dropped onto the road right in front of me and ran toward the other side of the street, then changed its mind and ran back, nearly running under my car and the whole time I was screaming, "STOP IT STOP IT, TURN AROUND, NO NO NO NO, NOT THAT DIRECTION, WHAT THE HELL IS YOUR MOTHER TEACHING YOU?"

And Carl's direct and immediate response to this was to look at me and say, "You know, they really ought to make it mandatory for the squirrels to watch that movie."

"What? What movie?"

"You know, Alcatraz."

"They need to watch a Clint Eastwood movie?"

"No, not that one, the one with the green ball thing in it."

Looooooooooooooonnnnnnnnnnnggggggggggg silence, while I mentally race through movies with green things.

"Oh. You mean The Rock?"

"Yeah! That one."

"Why in the hell do squirrels need to watch The Rock?"

"So they can learn how to go through that choppy thing. They can see Sean Connery and get all inspired before crossing the street."

He looks at me as if this is a perfectly valid suggestion. (Sometimes, with Carl, I never really know for sure.) It's then I remembered that he's been outside every day, working in the 114 degree heat index. I fully expect him to start playing frogger any moment with the traffic. But maybe he can teach the squirrels a thing or two.

Posted by toni at August 25, 2005 12:17 AM