The Disoriented-Blind Squirrel

Jr. High is a time of adolescent awkwardness. When I hear people talking about the horrors of their Jr. High experiences I almost feel bad for them. But awkward experiences define my life, so I look back on those years with a certain fondness that can only come from a truly quirky story teller like myself. My philosophy in life has always been:  "If it's embarrassing now, it will make a great story later." And I've had my fair share of "great stories". Here is one of them.

When I was young, I was the epitome of nerd. In a lot of ways I still am, but back then I had "the look"-- otherwise known as the Catholic School Girl Trifecta of Nerdy Apparel: Glasses, Braces, and a Plaid Skirt past the knees (and for the true nerds like myself--tube socks).

There were some 28 people total in my Jr. High class, and the four coolest people in that grade were me and my three amigas. We all filled our respective nerdy stereotypes:

My Politically Nerdy Friend

My Literary Nerdy Friend

My Musically Nerdy Friend

And then me, the Videogameing Nerdy friend.

We were an unstoppable force of concentrated intelligence. We were not intimidated by the jocks or the preps because we knew they'd be working for us after 10 years or so.

Fun fact: One of those jock people had to make me a bagel the other day. No joke. He made it well--I think he found his true calling. I am happy for him and his career of cream-cheese-filled opportunities.

***The reader should now be sensing cynicism.

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Moving on. One day we were sitting in Language Arts when I notice a squirrel sitting on the ledge of the window and this particular squirrel had a white glaze over its eyes.

Was this squirrel...blind? I waved at it and it was completely unfazed.

I couldn't help but feel bad for this poor creature. Little did I know, this would be the last time that I felt sympathy for a squirrel

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One afternoon during recess, while my Literary Nerdy friend and my Politically Nerdy friend were arguing about whether or not Rupert Gint is the right actor for Ron Weasly, my Musically Nerdy friend and I noticed that the trash can was...moving?

We ignored it at first because we wanted to observe the debate unfolding before us, but something was off and we pointed out the odd trashcan to the others.

It certainly was moving. More like twitching and we didn't know if we should check it or not. We all agreed that if we were going to check it out, we had to do it together...

We screamed! It was the squirrel! We scurried from this satanic furry creature and regrouped as it scurried away haphazardly. It could have killed us.

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This squirrel was seen frequently around the school. For the next few weeks we kept seeing glimpses of the poorly coordinated demon.

We saw it getting off the bus,

on our walk to mass,

and during gym class.
The squirrel became an urban legend at our school. Some say they saw it walk away after getting hit by a car, others say they saw it fly while some swear that they saw the squirrel stop a bus dead in its tracks just by staring at it. And to this day, when I am walking down Main Street, I keep a close watch for the Disoriented-Blind squirrel.

Scholars on a Saturday

The Spring Semester is officially in full swing, meaning that posts are going to occur less frequently. With five courses and twenty hours of work, writing/drawing stories will fall short on my list of things I need to get done.

Right now I am working at the Scholars desk and on Saturdays there is pretty much nothing to do. I could be doing homework, I could be working on my next story, but instead I am going to provide you with this:

Have a nice weekend for me.