Tag: Animals

MY PARENTS WATCH SQUIRRELS, WHAT DO YOURS DO?

Remember the incredible GEICO commercial where some secret agent is trying to escape via helicopter and his ride is late … then his phone rings and he answers it, expecting to talk to his companion, only to hear his mom on the other end talking about how ‘the squirrels are back in the attic. Your father says it’s personal this time’. Are you familiar with this 30 seconds of commercial genius? Arguably one of the best commercials GEICO has put out. It makes the gecko look a little dull if we’re honest.

If for some reason you are not able to recall the commercial I’m referencing, no worries. I’m clearly fantastic at illustrating the most minute of details and you should have a good understanding of what it’s like visually. It’s also not overly critical to my point here. Well, I guess a little bit, but not in a major way. The real star of this post is the squirrels. As it should be. Who doesn’t want, nay, need, more squirrels in their life? The answer is nobody except my parents.

Squirrels are a curious creature. Aesthetically, they are not the ugliest fur covered animals that exist. Believe it or not, ugly fur covered animals is a predefined Google search and there are some horrifying creatures that are living among us. I fully regret my decision to click on the link that specified ‘with pictures’, but here we are. Besides their physical appearance, because true beauty is found on the inside (duh), squirrels are a simple creature. In my experience observing them, there’s only two things they want – nuts and whatever the birds are eating. 

Sound familiar? Squirrels kind of remind me of the animal version of us. Always wanting what someone else has. And sometimes going to extremes to be like those people. Including, but not limited to, scaling greased poles, making daring leaps from fences towards the greased pole, waiting on the ground to catch crumbs that fall down, using a buddy system to scale the greased pole, etc. Ok, sure, those examples are highly specific to the squirrels, but use your imagination to apply it to the greener pastures we often chase.

Besides being cuddly looking and spending the majority of their time thinking about food, what else do squirrels really do? Become an invasive species on college campuses everywhere? Practice their hide and seek skills? Go on tree branch jumping adventures? Adorably tackle other squirrels as they try to climb trees? Pause. Let’s talk about how much I love seeing a squirrel come out of nowhere and absolutely wreck another squirrel’s journey up a tree. To what I’m assuming is a hidden nut stash. No sexual pun intended. Do you think they do it maliciously or are they playing with each other? Hard to say.

Now feels like a good time to point out that prior to about a year ago, I never really paid attention to squirrels. Or thought that much about them. They were just living their lives and I was living mine. Then, my parents decided to put a bird feeder in their backyard and the morning quarantine ritual became drinking coffee and discussing the ridiculous attempts by the squirrels to eat the food they bought for the birds. Discussing might be a generous way to put it. Imagine eating a peaceful breakfast with your father, only to have him space out in the middle of your conversation and, without any indication, leave the room to go out on the back porch and yell at the squirrels.

COVID gave a lot of us more time at home, and a chance to re-center. My parents chose to re-center and become the people who get annoyed with the ‘damn squirrels!’ I chose to re-center and thoroughly just enjoy those moments. And also accept that my parents have entered that phase of their lives. Sipping coffee and grumbling about squirrels. Spending countless hours thinking of ways to deter them from the bird feeder. But I love them anyway!

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!

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LIFE OF A BUG

Sometimes, when I’m outside, I like to watch little bugs take forever to travel the same amount of distance I can travel in a single step. Outside being the key term here. Because I find it fascinating watching all those little legs move so quickly. Working so hard and barely getting anywhere. What a strange life. Your whole goal for the day being to not be in the same place that you started at. Scavenge for some other bugs to eat. Climb some “trees” AKA plants. Fly around somewhere between 6 and 10 feet off the ground if you’ve been gifted by the bug gods. The usual, I suppose.

That’s outside, though. As in outside of the home. The residence. The abode. The lodgings. The main place of living. Do you understand where I’m going with this post? Bugs are fascinating in their natural habitat. Nature. The great outdoors. The environment. Mother Earth. As long as they stay out of my human sized personal bubble. Let me make this statement very clear before moving on any further: I am NOT a bug fan. I don’t like bugs. I think they’re gross. I think they’re pests. I think they’re kind of freaky. I don’t fully understand why we couldn’t have survived with more puppies. I would be fine not interacting with another bug again.

As soon as a bug gets bold, or takes advantage of a literal open door, and enters an indoor space … game over! This is a slightly controversial take in today’s world, but I will kill a bug. I do not kindly put it on a piece of paper and set it free on my patio. I do not open the front door and try to shoo it out with love and kindness. The only kindness I’m showing is that of a quick exit. Into bug heaven. With the sole of my shoe. If that bug wanted to live, either stay outside, or stay out of sight. 

I feel like I have digressed quite a bit from the main topic of this post. Which, of course, is what bugs think of how we behave around them. For starters, we have to look like moving mountains to them. Straight up giant dinosaurs. Especially the hills among us – the small children who like to hunt them down to play, or to stomp on their homes. Are they terrified? Are they oblivious? Are they even aware that some of us don’t like to be bothered with their presence? Hard to tell since we can’t communicate with them.

Take this example: you’re driving down the road. Having a great time. Belting out top 40 songs like you’re auditioning for a record label contract. Feeling the sunshine through the windows and rocking your shades. Then BAM! Surprise! A bug has joined you on this journey. And has been with you the whole time peacefully taking a ride, for free might I add, staying in an out of sight place. Why come out? If I can see you, I’m going to freak out. I’m going to do everything in my power to get you out of my car. So my blood pressure can return to normal.

What goes through the bug’s mind, though? When I roll down my window and yeet them back home. Well, I’m assuming back home, but more likely they are in a very unknown territory months of travel away from their families. Honestly, that sounds traumatizing. If that happened to me, I’d be terrified. Why? Because without any sort of technology, how would I even know how to get home? Would anyone come looking for me? Where would they look for me? Do bugs have built-in tracking devices so they can return to their loved ones? 

Ok, so maybe I do care about the fate of the bugs. More so, I care about not leaving any orphaned larvae stuck in someone’s backyard forever wondering why one of their parents never came home after trying to hitch an express train to work. No amount of therapy can give them answers. And since we can’t understand the bug noises, we cannot help ease their pain. Even when we’re the ones responsible for breaking up that family. A true travesty.

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!

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MY SPIRIT ANIMAL IS A KANGAROO

Kangaroos do not get enough love. Unless maybe you’re in Australia, but I can’t say for sure since I’m not an Aussie and would just be guessing. Is it a love / hate relationship? Is it more of an exotic fantasy relationship, much like we are with the rarely seen squirrel? Just kidding, squirrels are EVERYWHERE! It’d be more of a rarely seen flip phone kind of fascination. Is it an indifferent kind of relationship? I’m so curious how the Asutralians feel about the one of the most Chuck Norris level animals on the planet.

Clearly I may be a little biased, but I think kangaroos are the number one creature that slaps … or is amazing for everyone over the age of 16, myself included. What is not to love? Other than the occasional dog murder as Google so rudely likes to make appear in the first search result. My guess is that those dogs provoked said kangaroo in some way and I’m 15% positive they were either chihuahuas, or a rottweiler. One size extreme or the other. I have to believe the kangaroo didn’t see some random dog and think to itself ‘today is the day, this dog has got to go’. Unless it’s a psychopath, in which case I would need to rethink my whole concept of animal character traits.

Anyways … back to why kangaroos are super chill and I wish they would make good pets. Let’s start with the obvious. A built in snack pouch. Need I say more? Never again worry about forgetting a coat with big enough pockets for the king size candy bar, or your purse. You can always sneak some snacks around when it’s literally attached to you. And big enough to hold a baby ‘roo too so you could fit some dinner leftovers in there probably. Who’s to say? Endless opportunities to reduce, reuse, and recycle.

Some people are not the snacking type. To which I can confidently say I do not understand. We are not the same. But no worries! Listen, if you would rather do things other than eat, totally great. Second phenomenal trait – power propulsion. I mean, we’ve all been late to something at some point probably. Imagine if your car had a fifth wheel injected with some nitrous to make acceleration easy peasy. Or, if you were running, probably because a bear is chasing you, why else would you be running, and you had a tail that could propel you forward faster, and more efficiently than your legs? You would beat the bear for sure. For sure is probably a bit strong, but you would have a chance.

Those two reasons enough are why I feel a strong spiritual connection with the kangaroo. But alas, not everyone is satisfied so let’s keep going rapid fire style. They’re the closest living relative to the T-Rex. Zero part of that is factual, but look at them. Big legs and tiny arms it just makes sense. Apparently most of them are left handed, which is rare in humans but that means that us right handed pleebs would be the cool unique exceptions among them. A group of them is called a mob and if that alone isn’t intimidating watch me run with my tail pogo stick. Or watch me balance on it while I round kick you in the face – your choice.

It also brings me great joy to know that their children are called joeys. They were gender neutral before it was cool. Joey just also sounds a bit more like the cool kid on the playground than child does. All around, it sounds more fun than child. Child is just so … corporate … while joey is the startup. In a shocking twist, they are also good swimmers so it brings me peace to know that Michael Phelps’ spirit animal is probably also the kangaroo. One of the kangaroo species is the Wallaby and my most comfortable pair of shoes is also the Wallabee. Coincidence? I think not. No other soles are as springy.

Above all these fun kangaroo knowledge bombs, they’re also just super adorable. Up top, they look like rabbits, but down under? Tyrannosaurus rex! Like the mullet of the animal kingdom, if you will. Clearly a progressive species who doesn’t have time to deal with others. Unless forced to do so as in the unfortunate dog scenario. Let them live and they’ll be chill. Unlike say, the hornet who will seek you out just for kicks and giggles. And yet what mascot gets used more?! Clearly the more evil of the two.

Alright, jumping off my pedestal for now. If you know someone who would enjoy this post and want to share it with them, that would be awesome. Sharing is caring, after all. Don’t forget to subscribe to get these in your inbox twice weekly and follow TRP on Twitter for frequent musings. Thanks for reading!

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