Is It A Bird?
Yesterday afternoon I went for a walk near behind where I work and saw a rat on the pavement in front of me. There is was about thirty feet in front of me on my side of the street just sitting there with its long tail spread out before me as I walked towards it.
Round about rat minus twenty feet, it scampered away. Scampered. You read me? Not scuttled. Scampered.
You know like when you pick up a drink expecting one thing and it turns out to be something else? There’s that sickening moment of confusion before you realise what it is and you’re thinking: “Ew ew ew! Not milk! This isn’t milk! Uh oh.., Wait. Oh. Juice? Is it, yeah? Hehe. Juice. It’s OK, it’s juice.” And then everything’s fine again. Well, it turns out you get that when you are watching a rat which turns out to be a bald squirrel.
It had the big hind legs and the pointy head with big eyes of a rat but a tail which flicked and thrashed. The tail gave it away. It was a squirrel, but it was totally bare. And you don’t really notice how long a squirrel’s tail is until you see a bald one.
I kept walking towards it and it went off towards a house and ducked down the alleyway. It was probably banished from the squirrel community and had taken to living on the ground. Or maybe it was proud and was setting a trend. It could have been one of those metrosexual London squirrels trying to cope with the heatwave.
I called my friend Ben right away and told him the story, then I asked how he was.
“Kind of busy,” he said.
“Really?” I asked. “What’s up?”
“Oh you know,” he said, “job stuff.”
Ben didn’t really appreciate the significance of my find.
It really got me thinking though and I couldn’t concentrate during my next meeting back in the office.
I mean, a bald cat doesn’t look like anything else, but a squirrel changes completely.
It’s wierd.
So now I wonder if a crimped rat would you fool anyone if it got the tail moves down.
This post has nothing to do with the picture above it, but you can still follow the comic anyway every weekday over the next two weeks.
August 9th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
THis comic doesn’t have anything to do with the last comic.
There are two squirrels in my yard most times. One’s small, one’s the biggest squirrel I’ve ever seen. I call the little one Rocky and the big one Bullwinkle.
They don’t shave.
August 10th, 2006 at 1:00 pm
Yeah it does. He’s picking up his mate. He’s got the goggles on his head and he’s in the car he was leaning against in the other frame.
When I say “mate”, I mean this in the British sense. I say this just in case you’re American and maybe think I’m using it in the context of breeding.
Ed gets it, but not everyone gets it like Ed.
August 10th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Yeah but there’s no mention of the tragic pople-caused fall. No head injury, no broken ankle before the trip. Shoot, they’re pretending nothign happened!
I understood the connotation of ‘mate’ in this context. And for those of you who don’t get it liek Ed- you’re darn lucky!
August 10th, 2006 at 1:44 pm
Oh, such tragic typing.
What’s teh source of the comics?
August 10th, 2006 at 4:09 pm
They’re getting on with their lives. That’s what the police are telling us to do today.
(In case you’re reading this in the archives, today is August 10 2006, day of the London plane bomb plots. And hello people of the future.)
Also, I can’t say the source of the comics. I feel bad enough already, scanning in and publishing someone else’s content.
August 10th, 2006 at 4:17 pm
August 22 will be a little nervous , I think.
Well OK, CLiff THe Pirate, your secret’s safe with me on the comics.
Garr!
August 11th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
Apparently, a bald (read “skinned”) cat looks just like a skinned rabbit, which, apparently, is why rabbits are skinned only as far as their necks in butchers’ shops: to prove it’s a rabbit and not a cat. Apparently.