Add this to the list of things I worry about
Squirrel bitings.
I worry sometimes about my sister the mailman: she could be attacked by a mean dog, or a mean customer, or a crazy person; she could be run over by a crazy person in a car; she could fall on the ice, or on someone's unshoveled sidewalk, or a broken stair railing could catch her bag and cause her to tip over into someone's shrubbery (that really happened); plus the back pain from carrying around all those stupid mail-order catalogs, the stress of mandatory overtime -- especially during the winter with the damn daylight savings time thing making it dark so freaking early. But it never even occurred to me to worry that she might get bit by a squirrel and have to get rabies shots.
Well, it happened to a letter carrier in Oil City, PA, last Monday and she had to go to the hospital and get treated for cuts and scratches inflicted by a squirrel that attacked her while delivering the mail. "We are not issuing a squirrel alert," said Steve Jolley, a USPS manager in Oil City, "but everyone is aware of the incident."
7 comments:
PS -- Thanks to Julie for the story link.
i got bit by a squirrel when i was around 12. i vividly remember the two weeks i had to wait until i knew whether i'd have to have rabies shots. luckily, the squirrel wasn't rabid.
(this was back when rabies shots were nasty things given in your stomach muscles.)
when i worked at the univ of minnesota back in the early 90s, i was walking across campus with a coworker. one of the notoriously fearless u of m squirrels ran at me and climbed up my leg to my thigh, thinking for some reason that i had food. i almost died right then.
oh man, I forgot about those squirrels. They were brazen. I never was attacked or anything, but one of 'em got into my bookbag once while I was sitting outside reading a book. It crawled out again and chattered at me briefly before walking away. I think it was mad because there was no food in there, only books.
Omigod the U of M squirrels! They stole my french fries!!!!
Well the Loring Park ones weren't much better! I remember sitting there eating a muffin when a squirrel ran up into my lap and stole the paper wrapping from it.
Wow, Minnesota sounds harsh. On the UCLA campus, in my antediluvian day anyway, they weren't aggressive. Overly friendly for wild animals, but mellow and playful and adorable. We wanted to feed them, and we did.
Hmmm...I feel a metaphor coming on.
Hmmm...I also feel a vague memory of a discussion like this happening over at Bitch, Ph.D. something like eight months ago where someone else said the squirrels at UCLA were mean, and I said they weren't, and somebody figured that had become mean because my generation had fed them.
Oh, this might be a very painful metaphor indeed. I'd better go take care of it.
Funny you should post that sis, I am touched by your worry.. I am it is so nice to have a big sister who worries, but I have been attacked my a squirrel, and here is how it happened...
Every day I deliver to a house with a letter slot in the porch door, right near a large bush that produces hard purplish berries. Last summer, I was stuffing 63 crate and barrell catalogues into a 2 by 8 inch LETTER slot, when I was pelted on the head by a berry. I figured it had fallen from the tree and kept at my task. Then I got hit again, by another berry, I looked up and there was a suirrel, standing on the edge of the roof looking down on me. He threw another one. Everyday for a couple of weeks, this same squirrell was there, armed with plenty of berry grenades. I survived my daily attacks. And eventually the bush stopped producing berries, by the next summer, my Squirrel sniper had forgotten what fun that was.
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