it took me a total of one day to realize how crazy the squirrels are on campus. i would almost go to categorize them as "legitimately insane". it seems that every time i am in the pit talking to someone, out of the corner of my eye i catch a glimpse of cat crawling across the bricks. and when i say cat, i mean squirrel. i've never seen squirrels crawl so slow in my entire life. stealthy they are, for sure, but slow? never. once i saw a squirrel sitting on a ledge outside of the UL holding a gigantic waffle fry in its mouth. even when a lady came up to take a picture of him with her cell phone, he didn't move an inch. ...aren't squirrels usually terrified of humans? do the ones here all of a sudden want to be our friends and eat the same food we do? are they trying to be us? maybe they seriously think they are humans! i heard a story of a guy who was walking to class when a squirrel pounced on his shoulder and nuzzled his ear until the guy violently shook him off. poor guy.all of this squirrel observation in the past week lead me to have one of the worst dreams i've had in a while. in my dream, i was asleep in my bed and could feel two squirrels crawling all over me and trying to play with me. they were gentle, and in a way it just made me giggle and feel ticklish. then i opened my eyes (in the dream) and noticed that there was blood marks all over my hands and arms. i sat up and looked around for the squirrels and all of a sudden one of them came charging at my face. it was RAVENOUS. he was foaming at the mouth, cock-eyed, and rabies-infested. before he reached my face in an attempt to tear it up, i awoke from my dream and gave a huge sigh of relief.
the squirrels on campus here are definitely special. it makes sense that their familiarity with humans comes from the fact that thousands of people walk around them every day, unlike in my neighborhood back home where they only see cars. their habits are nothing less than strange though. their close proximity to humans, their glazed-over stares, and their unpredictable climbing patterns altogether don't appeal to me. i almost wonder if they watch all the drunken students stumble back to their dorms on weekend nights and throw acorns at them. judging from my observations, they most likely do. so watch out.
I totally agree! They are crazy here! I don't know what it is about the campus squirrels. Maybe they are just smarter than the rest - I mean they are at UNC.
ReplyDeleteMaybe they are just so used to humans by now that they aren't afraid of us. Or maybe you're right. Maybe they are just totally insane. I saw one the other day that was doing all kinds of flips like it had gotten shot in the tail or something. It was just jumping around everywhere.
That's crazy one landed on a guy! I would be terrified! One of my friends told me that a squirrel threw an acorn at her. It probably just dropped it on her or something, but I still think it's really funny.
And I've had one of those dreams too! It wasn't quite as bad as yours sounds, but I dreamed that I was eating my lunch on a wall by one of the buildings on the quad and a squirrel just sat there beside me eating an acorn. We glanced at each other and just continued eating. It was weird, because it felt so normal and natural in the dream, like nothing unusual was happening. I guess that's kind of realistic, though. I could totally picture that happening with the squirrels here.
And yes, I definitely think that happens. Hah! That would be so funny. I would undoubtedly throw acorns at drunken students walking home if I were a squirrel.
P.S. I really like the picture!
Squirrels have always freaked me out. The way they fidget and move so spastically scares me for some reason, probably because I never really know what they are going to do. I agree that the squirrels here are especially weird. My roommate told me that she was sitting in the quad last week and all the sudden she heard these scratching noises and then faint sounds. She said she looked up and saw two squirrels chasing each other around the tree and whimpering/making squirrel noises. I would have immediately gotten up and walked away. Also whenever I think of squirrels, I think of a story that my grandfather tells about his encounter with the strange animals. When he was younger, he was visiting his grandparents. They were all sitting in the den, and his grandfather took his flat topped hat off and placed it on the table beside him. The next thing they knew, there was a squirrel standing motionless on top of the hat. They had no clue what to do because they did not want a squirrel running wild through the house. What a strange situation! Who knows, maybe they do think they are human!
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