onomatopoopa

Aww, look at that cute little furry-tailed squirrel eating a delicious White Cheddar Cheez-It® cracker, right? WRONG. Think again, more along the lines of vicious and aggressive.

We're down in DC, having a picnic on some shady grass next to Judiciary Square and the National Building Museum this afternoon. An adorable little squirrel comes along, and we toss it a piece of strawberry. (Do squirrels eat strawberries? Well, in any case, this blood-thirsty villain doesn't.) We toss it a cracker. It ignores the offerings, but stares at us. And stares. And stares. [Que scary music.] It comes closer, and closer. When ole fuzzy-wuzzy is about three feet away from me, Katie starts to get uneasy. When it's one foot from me, Katie is timorous. My male dismissiveness of danger kicks in, and I off-handedly ask if she wants me to get rid of the little guy. (Does this attitude remind you of pigeon poop? Maybe it should.) So I swing my water bottle in its direction to scare it off. Scaring happens, but not to the squirrel. Instead, it jumped toward us, landing on my leg. Katie screamed. Other picnickers looked up. I swung again with my water bottle (why oh why did I already set down my plastic mayo-spreading knife?!), but missed. He bounded out of range, and picked up the previously-tossed Cheez-It®, crunching away as if nothing had happened. I took a picture.

Feeling like the victor for having braved this onslaught, I return to eating. Wrong decision. Every time we turned our heads away, he'd come a few inches closer, preparing for a second sortie. We eyed him closely, watching our food but little. Then, our attention diverted, reinforcements came bounding through the grass behind me. Katie sounded retreat, and we hastily gathered our remaining food and beat a shamed withdrawal to a distant patch of grass -- abandoning the couple thirty feet away to their fate....