Of the genus Sciurus, of the family Sciuridae

They’re chattering above me, high-pitched and frantic. Quick dashes from one limb of their tree to the next, bouncing in and out of a gap embedded in the scraggly oak, tiny eyes on me. I stop my intake of oxygen, eyes stuck to my reading, heart beating madly. Tails swish. A squabble over an acorn erupts. I peek upward at the entanglement of branches and spot the tuffs of auburn fur and teeth. There are squirrels above me. There are squirrels. Above me.

Squirrels, people have told me, are bundles of furry, fuzzy joy, content to gather and store, to sleep and eat and all that jazz. I’ll agree that they’re cute. I’ll even agree that they aren’t all that bad. However, you couldn't get me to admit that eight years ago. One summer evening at the park, I left my bike and jogged off to play. Less than an hour later, I toddled back, realizing that I might not get my bike back. Two squirrels, one on the handle bars the other on my seat, peered at me. Doing what any other dehydrated, irrational eight-year-old would do, I screamed. This eventually resulted in a pelting of acorns and various objects from the tiny monsters.

Over the years, I’ve pretty much gotten over my fear of this beady-eyed, rather malevolent rodent. No longer do I watch in fear from my bedroom window, eyeing a particularly pudgy squirrel perched on a branch. (With just inches of wall between me and them, I wasn’t exactly keen on watching their incisors strike again and again into inauspicious acorns.) I generally love animals, rodents and reptiles and all, and have housed more than one hamster, begged for ferrets, and ogled at rats much to my mother’s displeasure. Squirrels, however, are a different story. I still catapult from under oak trees thanks to them.