The Funniest Squirrel Story You Ever Heard!

                        Laugh as I tell you how Fate meted out a surprise for my annoying Mom one day.    There is a day that I shared with my Dad that stands out as one of the funniest, most rewarding and sensational days of my early life.  

                    It was the day that the squirrels got even for both of us.

                  My Mom was not afraid of feeding squirrels.  The photo here shows her boldness.  Like me, if it had fur she'd try to feed it. (Unless it was a big dog.)
 

Mom feeding her squirrel friends in Alabama

              My dad would not let ME feed squirrels, though.  He told horror stories about VA Hospital patients who had lost fingers.  Supposedly, if one of those near-sighted nasties bit you, the deep teeth would inoculate your finger with the plague.  The wound would close up immediately, sealing your fate.  Tales of amputated fingers as a result of squirrel bites haunted my sleep.
 
                           Still it was hard to resist feeding them from a distance.

                  I love squirrels and so did Dad.  He kept his distance, though.  Feeding the local buggers finally resulted in early morning encounters with them clinging to the door screen, waiting for him to open it and toss bread.  It was nothing unusual to open the main kitchen door and find at least one squirrel at eye level, hanging on, waiting for a handout.

                One time Dad put peanut butter on some stale bread and tossed it out.  One little squirrel, way smaller than the others, grabbed that piece and tried to run up a tree. 

                The toast was so much bigger and heavier than he anticipated.  Slowly, the bread started peeling the squirrel off the tree.  Next thing we knew, the little squirrel and the toast were blended in a whirling blur on the ground.  

                 Covered in peanut butter, the poor victim was chased from branch to branch by the other squirrels, while his compatriots ate HIS piece of bread on the ground. 

                  One squirrel up in the tree, caught him, held him down and totally mortified his squirrel dignity by licking him clean.  (probably his mother.) He was completely humiliated and screeched afterward for a good half hour from a higher branch.  The others ignored him.

                  Sometimes the blue jays would boldly attack a squirrel that dared to sit and eat his trophy snack within reach.  The pesky blue jays dived, pecked, and squawked! Often the offended squirrel gave up his food to the aggressive jays. 

                     It was fun to watch the battle.  You always knew when a jay had won food away from a squirrel.  

                     The air would vibrate with the hoarse squirrel “barks”, mews and drawn-out caustic scolding, from a safe branch above the scene of the attack.  I’ve witnessed a squirrel keep up his complaint for a whole hour, while the jays feasted on HIS prize below. Nothing gets pissed like a hungry squirrel that’s lost his treasure.  My Mom was like that sometimes.  

                   One day the squirrels got the best of HER.  Here starts what I think you will agree, is the funniest squirrel story ever!

                   I hated traveling with my parents in the car.  Especially on a long trip.  One long day of driving with Mom from NC on our trip to Florida was hideously unbearable.  We went every year for our annual sea water-snorting (as prescribed by our Ear, Nose and Throat doctor for sinus problems in the family).   We drove all day in the oven heat of summer, no air conditioning in the car, hot, sticky and boring.  
                   Mother had been sucking on her front teeth making this hideous sound constantly.  It was somewhere between a low whistle and a gross wet noise.  She did it on purpose, too.

                    Dad had been bothered by it for hours.  He’d clinch the steering wheel harder, and look over at her, glaring.   (She would ignore him.)  He repeated this, over the long, sultry day, so many times I thought his neck would wring off.   She just kept on sucking on her teeth, staring straight ahead.  He just kept glaring over at her.
 

Our 50s Buick was just like this one.

                                 I about felt like killing them both!

 

                      Sitting in the back seat of our Buick, I witnessed the whole debacle.  For HOURS … and HOURS …  I know how that little squirrel felt.  I was MAD, embarrassed that two ADULTS would behave like that.

                   My parents, who were married 44 years in their lifetime,  played this "travel bathroom game” and it wasn’t funny.  Mom had a small bladder, a weak one.  She wanted to stop often (like every half hour) and nagged him constantly.  Dad would deliberately drive PAST filling stations just to annoy the crap out of her.  He knew if we stopped, not only would she take ages in the bathroom, but it would cost him dearly.  

                   Mom was not going to leave without a Coke and some peanuts.  That generated more pee naturally.  It cost money and of course, I had to have something too.  The delays made the trip even more miserable.

                  So it was a battle, a silent one, except for Mom’s REALLY obnoxious sucking noise.  Mom could be a pain and she was sure being one this time.  So was Dad.  He was being a complete butt.

I love this picture of the two of them. This happened a LOT!

                  Finally, her insistence that she HAD to pee and her sucking her teeth without let up was his Waterloo.  He flat gave up.  We stopped at a tourist trap, Silver Springs Park, Florida. 

                 One really long bathroom trip later, a raid on the gift shop for treats, and Mom was happy.  I remember she was wearing her long hair wound up around her head, and a halter top.  Her shorts completed the summer attire; it was very muggy in Florida that time of year, but she was dressed for it.  She had as little skin covered as she could get away with to stay cool.

My dad earlier in the 40s. He laughed a lot in those days.

                

One of the glass-bottom boats at Silver Springs Resort where we stopped.

                  Dad and I stood, leaning against the car, tired of all the sitting in it for hours.  Tired of this long trip....                     

                                 Tired of my very annoying mother. 

                    I’d gone pee, had a snack, and was just looking at the scene around us.  We gazed lazily at the other tourists, getting ready to board the glass bottom boats at Silver Springs docks.  Kids were running all over, being kids.  There were a lot of people milling around.  Mom just sat in peace under the Cypress tree.  We wanted to get going again and she was holding us up.

                      Suddenly, Dad elbowed me silently and pointed. He pinched my elbow so hard I almost cried out but he shushed me with his hand.

                      Mom, sitting a few feet away, under a giant cypress tree,  had opened her peanuts and was trying (as was her custom from childhood), to pour her peanuts into her Coke bottle.  (If you have never savored this delicacy, you are missing a treat!)


                       Just above her head, and on the back side of the tree trunk, were squirrels.  Not just one or two, but a dozen at least, and they were BIG!    Lured by the tantalizing smell of her peanuts, they were almost rabid with desire.... for HER treat!


                     So, drawn by the scent of peanuts, stealthily they approached her, totally unnoticed.  One bold fellow hopped up to her on the ground from the front. 

                   Being my squirrel-loving Mom, she tossed him a peanut. Big mistake....

               Another on the grass started towards her, too, from the side.   Behind her head, two more were quietly skittering down the tree … others moved from the back of the trunk around to the front. 

                   We could see what was unfolding and we waited for it...                WAITED.... WAITED........WAITED...

                   Seeing their companion get tossed a nut was just too much for these tree trunk curmudgeons.  BOTH of the GREEDY squirrels on the tree front above her head, LEAPED!  RIGHT INTO HER HAIR!


                   It was timed such that the two on the ground charged her lap.   One who jumped on her head, got caught in her hair! 

                    Simultaneously, the ones on the ground charged up her bare legs!    The others jumped down on her boobs and bare shoulders!     (Imagine how that felt - all those scratchy little squirrel feet, on your exposed skin, your head, your arms, legs, thighs…. It must have been horrendously shocking!) 

                One tried to run right up the leg of her shorts!   Eeeeeeeya!!

                     
                    Mom instantly FREAKED!  She shrieked, becoming a whirling dervish, tossing coke, peanuts and her hands in the air!

                     I think Dad bit his lip so hard it BLED, trying not to laugh out loud.  


               He sure grabbed my arm, pinched me hard so I didn’t yell out a warning.  We watched with something akin to vindication (or GLEE) as Mom instantly became a spinning human top, hysterically screaming!   Her Coke and peanuts scattered in every direction, while she launched herself off the ground, jumping up and grabbing her squirrel-infested hair!  


              That didn’t help, because all the squirrels tried to get DOWN Mom’s body to the food.
  

                    She became an INSTANT squirrel carpet, a squirrel highway!

                   With all the screeching, jumping around, swatting at squirrels, it’s amazing she didn’t end up with a bad bite, even  Rabies or Tetanus!  

                                            She promptly PEED herself. 

                   She about ripped her hair out, and had turned beet red from head to toe.  The squirrels, apparently practiced in assaulting people for food, grabbed her goodies and vanished into the trees like ghosts. 

                  A very distraught, disheveled Mom stumbled over to us, shaking, totally hysterical.  We just stood there, mouths open, looking (or trying to look), INNOCENT!   

I was such a cute dweeb in those days.

                 We made sympathetic faces and noises, trying not to laugh.  Dad comforted her, got out the luggage so she could change and bought her another Coke and more peanuts. 

                                       Which she ate IN THE CAR.   


                 The squirrels had gotten even for US, for our misery.

                 Well, that was the END of the sucking noises she made.     She gradually calmed down, changed her clothes, re-did her hair and got back in the car, as though nothing ever happened.   

                She never said another word all the way to the motel that night.  It was a peaceful, relaxing drive.

My folks and me a few years after that trip to Florida

                      Dad tried not to smirk or laugh, but YOU know, she KNEW he was laughing inside at her.

                                             We both were, only I wasn’t as cool as Dad.  


                    He hummed all the way to the motel.   And me …. I got a spanking when we got there for grinning way too much. 

                                            WAY TOO MUCH!