Poopy Squirrels

Edgar recently celebrated his 34th birthday, and in between counting his gray hairs and rubbing Ben-Gay on his aching old joints, we managed to squeeze in some time to go over to his parents for a belated birthday lunch on Sunday. It was uncharacteristically cold inside of their house (probably my system being in shock from "it has central air conditioning" now being an accurate description of "his parent's house") so we settled into some plastic chairs in the sunshine on their back patio.

Gazing absently into space during a lull in the conversation, I noticed some movement in the fronds of a palm tree out of the corner of my eye. Which is when I discovered them: the Mission: Impossible Squirrels. Or Cirque du Soleil Squirrels, whichever fits your fancy.

There was a squirrel just chilling, hanging off of this palm tree frond upside down and eating berries off of another tree. And every once in a while, he would just casually move to another frond with all of the grace of those acrobatic people that do those routines in the big huge ribbons that hang down from the ceiling. And all the while he was upside down, looking like he was about to dive bomb us at any moment from his position. As he would move up and down the fronds in this position, we began to softly serenade him with the Mission: Impossible theme music, because, you know....seemed appropriate.

So little faux-Ethan Hunt squirrel amused us heartily, even more so when he scampered back into the heart of the palm tree and began fighting with another squirrel that was in there. What happened next can only be described as a Three Stooges movie enacted by the squirrels. They began chasing each other in circles around the outside of the trunk of the palm tree, scooting around the outside trying to stay out of sight of the other. And one of the squirrels, the one that I suspect was the one delighting us with his crazy acrobatics before that, kept himself in this upside down, downward slant the entire time, even when he was trying to keep away from the other squirrel.

Eventually they tired of their chase, and the angry squirrel that was doing the chasing settled on a power line that ran right next to the palm tree. Acrobatic squirrel stayed in downward facing dog pose lower down on the trunk. We had gone back to our conversation, when, during a happenstance glance at the squirrels, I noticed a little black something drop from the squirrel on top and land on the other squirrel.

"Guys."

"What?"

"The one squirrel just pooped on the other squirrel's head."

"NO WAY!!!!"

And in unison, three heads whip around to stare at the squirrels, both as still as statues. Just as another little pellet of poop drops from the one squirrel and whizzes within an inch of the other. And then a third little poo-poo nugget dropped out and landed straight on it's head. THIS IS MOTHER NATURE AT ITS FINEST, PEOPLE. I feel sorry for anyone that has not had the pleasure of seeing a squirrel poop on his little squirrel friend. And I think this is something that is specific only to squirrels, because I have no desire to see a dog poop on another dog or a cat poop on another cat. But there is something that is just too damn funny about watching two squirrels chase each other round and round round and then watch the one poop on the other like "THIS IS WHY I WANTED TO CATCH YOU IN THE FIRST PLACE."

And I emailed my husband three times at work today with an email that said nothing but "POOPY SQUIRRELS!"