Don’t Worry, They’re Safe

Posted on October 27, 2008
Filed Under Daily, Family | Leave a Comment

When I was 16 years old, I hit a squirrel as I was driving home from a picnic at a local park.
And I cried like a baby.

How could the state/county/town WHOEVER allow a 25 mph speed limit on that road? It was just too fast. That little guy could never have made it across the road with cars coming at him at that speed. It’s basic physics people! I demanded that the speed limit be changed to 8 mph and that there be Squirrel-Crossing signs framed with blinking lights at half-mile intervals. No one heard my plea.

My grandmother was an avid hunter in her youth. She and my grandfather used to trek through the Indian jungles fearlessly hunting what the World Wide Fund for Nature is trying to protect today.

I don’t doubt that their love for the “sport” added to a decline-in-species of some of the most beautiful animals in the world. I don’t agree with the old school hunting traditions in South Asia, but for the record, I’m not mad. Just like in the United States, many of the world’s countries have laws that now protect its native wildlife.

My grandmother was not just a hunter she was a master of the craft. I know this because these are the stories she would tell me as we ate breakfast together at the table in the summertime. She was meticulous about her approach, skilled with her weapon and a student of my grandfather’s.

She once shot a female tiger that had recently given birth and was out hunting for food. As the tiger took its final breath, (stop reading here if you’re squeamish or subscribe to PETA’s newsletter) my grandmother drank its warm milk — she said the elders in the village she grew up in said it would make you smarter if you could get your hands on something so rare.

She killed for recreation the way many people still do. I don’t condone it but I tell you this story so you too will be floored when you learn why she stopped — cold turkey.

One morning as we were sitting around the table, eating and chatting like we always did, she told me about the day she decided never to hunt again. She was out with her gun and her game face. She spotted an animal and she fired. But then, the unexpected happened. It wasn’t an exotic bird that fell to its death. It was a squirrel.

A piece of shrapnel must have ricocheted off a part of the tree and hit him.

“I just kept thinking that he must have had a family and now he was gone,” my grandmother said, her eyes welling with tears.

“If he had someone waiting for him they would never see him again. And it was my fault.”

I felt bad. Here is this woman, like 86 years old and she’s crying over a squirrel she accidentally shot some 60 years ago. But I have to admit I was a little perplexed. What about the baby tiger cubs that never got to see their mom again? Mom gets shot; cubs die of hunger – if you ask me, that’s something to feel bad about.

I started to wonder why people feel so bad when they kill squirrels on the roads and why they try so hard to avoid them. If anything, squirrels should be hunted because they are totally over populating the earth – well definitely my backyard. It’s not that I want them to die but when was the last time you heard someone go, “Aww, Johnny, look at that adorable little squirrel!”

Well, maybe this guy says that to his kid, but whatever. The point is, do people even notice squirrels unless their road kill or eating out of your bird feeder?

Spiders eat mosquitoes that carry West Nile. And even crows eat the road kill that could otherwise fill our neighborhoods with the bacteria of death.

But when was the last time a squirrel contributed to society?

I always see people brake in the roads and on exit ramps trying to dodge the little guys as if the squirrel’s safety comes before all the people driving 45 mph behind the guy that slammed on his brakes. 

The other day while driving I approached a pedestrian crosswalk that more often than not I have to stop at. But this day there were no people so I rolled on through.

Then suddenly I see a squirrel in the middle of the road.

 CRAP! HE GOES RIGHT.

I SWIRVE LEFT.

HE’S BACK. I BREAK BUT I’M SKIDDING.

HE RUNS LEFT I JERK THE WHEEL RIGHT.

AHH! HE HAS A FRIEND. TWO SQUIRRELS IN THE ROAD!

I SLAM ON THE BREAKS AS HARD AS I CAN.
It all happened so fast that when my car stopped I held my breath.

Did I hit them? Did you feel a bump in the road? If there was no bump, you didn’t hit them.

Out from under my car I see two squirrels run on to the sidewalk.

I let out a sigh of relief.

Don’t worry, they’re safe.
Maybe squirrels don’t contribute anything to the greater good of the world, or maybe we just can’t see it. But if all of creation has a purpose then those little guys who eat with their hands and wipe their mouth must have a purpose, too.

The Boss says squirrels aren’t very intelligent.
Maybe that’s why we look out for them.

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