It was the spring of my sophomore year in college at UW. I was walking to class with a friend. We were both majoring in Fisheries. It had been dry and warm for many days. We had a class together in the afternoon at the college of fisheries. 'Stan' lived in a fraternity and I in the dorms in north campus. We were walking through the campus on our way to class. There were people everywhere walking and laying in the grass. And yes, there were even some squirrels about.
Stan reached into his backpack and pulled out a Snickers candy bar and tore open the wrapper to take a bite. At the very moment he tore open the wrapper, my eyes were fixed upon a squirrel that was quite a ways in the distance. It had to be almost a football field away. There were people and even other squirrels between us but my eyes were upon that one squirrel for some reason... and when Stan ripped open the wrapper, the squirrel stopped dead in his tracks and turned and looked straight in our direction. Then it started racing towards us in the bouncing way a squirrel would run. It was approaching slightly to right of straight ahead of us. It was running as fast as it could. Stan did not see it and I was not sure what to think at first.
It seemed like such a weird coincidence at first... but the squirrel kept running as fast as it could right at us. Soon it was about 50 yards away. I still was very uncertain about it's intentions but my eyes were glued to that squirrel. A few moments later it was about 20 yards away and still Stan did not see it coming.
It was at this point that I suddenly had a moral dilemma. It was like in the movie, Emperors New Groove, when Kronk gets his shoulder angels. Should I say something to warn Stan about the approaching squirrel or should I say nothing and watch what I hope will happen... that the squirrel will go after Stan's candy bar. Part of me wanted to help Stan but then I thought how stupid it would look to push Stan aside and yell, "Squirrel!" as I try to protect him from the approaching squirrel. Another part of me thought about how cool it would be to see what might happen. So in the end, I did nothing so I could possibly watch a train wreck.
Stan never saw the squirrel the whole way. In the end, it ran right up his pant let and stopped on his chest grasping his shirt with his left front paw and both rear paws. The squirrel's right paw was left in the air and he quickly glanced from the candy bar to Stan face, back and forth for a short while. Stan had stopped walking and stood there is shock not knowing what to do.
I learned to speak some squirrel that day. After a long pause with the squirrel glancing back and forth and Stan frozen in his tracks not knowing what to do... I broke the awkward moment by suggesting that Stan give the squirrel some of his candy bar. Stan reached over the squirrel with his right hand and broke off a big piece of his candy bar and handed it to the squirrel. The squirrel grabbed it with his free right paw and turned and raced down his leg across the grass and up a tree... and in a few moments was out of sight. Stan turned and looked at me in shock. I patted him on the back and smiled and we shared a good laugh about it.
The moral to the story is ... we have needs all around us staring us in the face. We don't have to give away our entire candy bar, but we sure should be willing to give away some of our candy bar.
Day 110
No comments:
Post a Comment