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Member
Join Date: Nov-2004
Location: toronto
Age: 39
Posts: 1,818
Country: 
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Angry squirrel of death. (worth reading)
I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect
lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown
furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop
immediately in front of me.
It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the
road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very
fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it -- it was that
close. I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a
motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me.
I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers never
fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves!
Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was
standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with
steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes.
His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed
and leapt!
I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Bonsai!" or
maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was
nothing short of spectacular...
He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me
squarely in the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not
know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little
buddies along for the attack.
Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of
activity. As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer
riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern.
This furry little tornado was doing some damage!
Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed
in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25
mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his
life with a squirrel.
And losing...
I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I
finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung
the evil rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into
the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have
done it. The matter should have ended right there.
It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one
of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and
I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser. But
this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary
angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF
DEATH!
Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands
and, with the force of the throw, swung around and with a
resounding thump and on amazing impact; he landed squarely on my
BACK and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting
activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him! The
situation was not improved. Not improved at all.
His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I
was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of
the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the
handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy
twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy
twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result.
Torque.
This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very
good at it.
The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement.
The squirrel screamed in anger.
The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy.
I screamed in... Well... I just plain screamed.
Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser,
dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn t-shirt, wearing only
one leather glove, and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly
accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with
a demonic squirrel of death on his back.
The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.
With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand
back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike.
This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I
really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or
parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the
throttle... my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to
mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the
massive power of the big cruiser.
About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying
sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was
an evil mutant satanic attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me.
As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I
am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little
effect on the squirrel, however. The RPMs on the Dragon maxed
out (since I was not bothering with shifting at the moment), so
her front end started to drop. Now picture a large man on a huge
black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn
T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80
mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail
sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet. By now the
screams are probably getting a little hoarse. Finally I got the
upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out
of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This
time it worked ... sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of ...so to
speak. Picture a new scene. You are a cop. You and your partner
have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with
your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed
in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing
only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel,
and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength
throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car. I
heard screams. They weren't mine... I managed to get the big
motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the
ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a
cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I
would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove back). I
really would have. Really... Except for two things. First, the
cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned
about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both
sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the
passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into
somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The
cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the
street, aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car. So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway. That was one thing. The other? Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me. That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car. A somewhat shredded patrol car ... but it was all his. I took a deep
breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off
of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided
it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole
lot of Band-Aids
Last edited by peterm15; 11-14-04 at 06:24 PM..
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