I’d never seen a baby squirrel. I had seen younger specimens (probably akin to human teenagers) playing in the springtime, doing a lot more playing than the serious work of finding food for then and later (again, probably akin to human teenagers). I just assumed they stayed in their nest, close to their mother, until they became those teenagers.
We lived in Norman at the time, on a tree lined street. Norman is run over with squirrels, a remark probably totally misunderstood and misapplied, and yet appreciated, by people from Stillwater and Austin, Texas. Not far after leaving our driveway, we came upon a small animal, looking something like a small mouse, in the middle of the street. She Who Must be Obeyed ordered me to come to a halt and I did as I was told. She ran out and gathered the thing, barely having any fur on his little body, into her hands and She became the proud owner of a squirrel. Following a visit to the veterinarian, who gave us a formula for making something to feed him, we bought a medicine dropper and accepted him as our new responsibility. The vet had told us that he may have climbed out of the nest and fallen to the ground or his mother may have kicked him out. He said that if she did, it was probably because he was sick. I have since learned that veterinarians sometimes speculate on things now and then.
We got a bird cage and kept it in our bedroom. We would take him out and feed him the formula the vet gave us and watched him grow. There is nothing cuter than a baby squirrel. Of course, a baby anything is cute, but this little animal had a special place in our hearts because of his uniqueness. We would take him out and hold him. He fought a little at first when we placed the dropper to his mouth, but then he tasted the formula and grabbed it with his front feet and drank like a man athirst in a desert. As he got older, he graduated in his diet to Cheerios. That was a learning experience as I did not know he had such ingrained intelligence. He would eat his fill and then take a Cheerio from our hand, jump down on the carpet and go through the motions of burying it. When he finished, the Cheerio was there on top of the carpet but he was satisfied that he had hidden it away for later.
As he continued to grow, we could take him from his cage and allow him to run through the house. He always returned to his cage in the bedroom. And then he started chewing some things which did not need chewing. I still have some books which have corners he damaged. He began to run around and around our hand while holding him, from the palm to the back to the palm. It seemed to be a fun thing for him to use your hand in this manner, much as one in the wild runs around and around a tree branch. After he was through, you would have scratches all over the back of your hand. Whatever he was doing, we enjoyed having him for a very unique pet. And then, puberty set in.
A horny little squirrel is a mean little squirrel. Puberty in a male animal, even a human animal, causes him to want to dominate anything and anyone around. We had named him Lucky when we found him and the name fit. He was lucky he was found by us rather than by Mookie the cat. He was lucky we were willing to feed and nurture him. And now that he was turning mean, he was lucky I didn’t put him in a cooking pot.
We continued to handle him, thinking familiarity with humans would make him a better and calmer animal. What we ended up making, though, was an animal that wasn’t afraid of humans. And the absence of fear makes an animal dangerous; it invites the animal to try to dominate humans. As we continued to handle him, he got a little more aggressive all the time. He added biting to his repertoire of favorite things to do. Not serious biting at first, just gentle nips. Sometimes he would place his mouth on your finger, letting you feel his teeth, and I would marvel at the restraint he would exercise as I gently slipped my finger out of his mouth. But, controlling him was getting more difficult all the time.
One Sunday morning we were getting dressed for church while he was trying to tear heck out of his cage. I was dressed and was waiting for She Who Must be Obeyed when I decided to take him from his cage and try to calm him down while petting him. When I did, he turned vicious and violent. He was going crazy, biting and scratching. Finally, he got my thumb in his mouth and bit down. I heard and felt his teeth crunching down on the bone in my thumb. As the bone in my thumb is not any stronger than a walnut, which he could chew open, I could see in my mind having to go into the hospital with a crushed thumb. I threw him off and he landed somewhere across the room. He turned to come back after me until he saw I was prepared to get hold of him and put him back into his cage. He didn’t exactly back off, he held his ground, baring his teeth and daring me to try to pick him up.
While I was fighting the wild beast, She was in the adjoining bathroom applying the finishing touches of her makeup. I told her what had happened and that I was going to get some leather gloves out of the car. Coming back into the house, She met me at the door with a look of terror on her face, and there was blood all over her white robe. “Lucky attacked me,” She said tearfully. Her hands looked like they had been cut up in a knife fight. She had tried to coax him to her, thinking she could get him back into his cage. But, he had turned on her with a fury normally reserved for wild boars or bears or mountain lions.
Returning to the bedroom, I cautiously opened the door and looked in. Lucky was not to be seen. I stepped inside, closing the door behind me. We had recently painted the woodwork in that room, including the door, a clean white. It had brightened the room. But, when I looked at the door I saw blood smeared all over it and the door facing. There was a heavy covering of bright red blood smeared around the doorknob where She was obviously trying to get the door open so She could escape the mean little devil. There had been an obvious fight and so far that morning it looked like the squirrel was winning.
Lucky appeared on the headboard and glared at me with evil intent. He jumped down on the bed and came toward me. I reached my gloved hand down and he attacked me. He was doing a number on my hand even through the leather gloves. I had hold of him and had no intention of letting him go. I eventually got him back into the cage where he stayed until something could be done with him.
We cleaned the human blood from off the woodwork and laundered the robe. We bandaged the hands of She Who Must be Obeyed and I wondered about Lucky. Perhaps his mother really did kick him out of his nest.
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