squirrels vs. chickmunks vs. me

my sister just said to me:  are the killer chickmunks as entertaining as squirrels that play chase?
and i said:  no not really. just scaredy cats. but they had devil eyes.
and she said:  i was just wondering if they were crazy (and some other stuff)

but that's not the story.

the story is. 

once upon a time when my sister was in college and i was in high school i came to visit her.  and we went for a walk in the park.  and i saw a squirrel by a tree and i was all "i'm gonna chase that squirrel!"  because i thought it would just run away and that would be that.  so i ran up to it and it climbed the tree to eye level - my eye level, that is, which was probably at about 5'2"  then (if i was 5'4.75" - possibly? ((don't worry - now i'm close to 5'6" - that's what they told me the last time i went to the doctor))  anyways.  not important.  the squirrel was by my face.  and i ran around the tree and it just went around the tree too.  and when i would stop it would like peek around like "na na nana naaa naaaa!! can't catch me claire turtle!!!*" and it just never ran away.  it turned into this whole ridiculous "squirrel teasing girl" instead of "girl teasing squirrel", like it should've been, and Would've been for any other person in the world. (i almost said "for any normal person", but then i realized what that would mean for me!!).

this whole ridiculousness was really no big deal and my sister and i laughed about it and i forgot about it.  and then she told allllll her friends, so next time i came to visit everyone was making fun of me about it.  those were the days before i was immune to people making fun of me so i was really barrassed!

*claire turtle used to be one of my nicknames. alicia was my neighborhood best friend when we were smallish and nicole was her older sister and i was always late getting ready and eating slow and never on time and all that so she always called me claire turtle. even in high school. i think she's married now... irrelevent, but what can i say?


the other story is.

when i lived in my first apartment, my sophomore year, the laundry was in a different building, so you had to go outside to get to it.  one day i was going to do laundry and i walked out the door and there was a squirrel in the grass.  straight in my path.  i stopped and looked at it, and i was all "aw it's so cute, look at it's little ears and it's fluffy tail!"  i was feeling a little nervous, i won't lie, because you always hear those squirrel rabies stories.  or ok, maybe you don't, but i sometimes make up squirrel rabies scenarios, just to be on the safe side... so naturally, squirrel rabies was the second thing that popped into my head.  but i wanted to be brave and show mr. nutty-brains-potentially-rabid who was boss.  well, when i started walking towards him, he started running at me!  not away, like any normal squirrel would do.  so then i was all "uh, definitely a case of rabies, better go around" so i went to go around him.  and he started running at me again! so i ran the other way.  he chased me again!  What In The World?!?!  by that time i was like getting Really nervous because something was definitely wrong with mr. nutty-brains-most-definitely-rabid and he was looking less "look at his cute ears and fluffy tail!" and more "look at his red eyes and foaming mouth!!!".  so i decided that i was just going to have to be Really brave and run really fast and try to get by.  so i took a deep breath, screamed as loud as i could, and ran by him.  mr. rabid-nutty-brains didn't move an inch.  i turned around and there was this girl standing on the sidewalk just staring at me...
don't worry.  by that time i was more immune to people's reactions to me so i just smiled and waved and walked off and pretended to not be embarrassed - and wasn't even really that embarrassed. 

this seems to be becoming less a story of squirrels and more a chronology of me forgetting how to get embarrassed when i do really weird/stupid/outrageous things... like the time (this summer) when i went grocery shopping at safeway and i was really happy because ferdinand's radio was working and my favorite song was on so i was sitting in the parking lot singing really loud and car dancing really outrageously until the song was over.  then i got out and realized that the car parked in front of me was full of boys who were just staring at me in confusion? disbelief? something... but did i bat an eye?  not a chance.  just got on with my shopping.  i can't decide whether this is a good or a bad thing...

anyways.  back to the squirrels and chickmunks.  the squirrels were nuts. (haha - like that pun?) the chickmunks were not. 

the end.