It really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who reads my blog on a regular basis that I am a collector of sciurine paraphernalia.  I’m always on the lookout for anything squirrel-related, and those who are aware of my obsession, whether they be from my biological family or my internet family, frequently pass along any mangy rodentry that might tickle my fancy.  Heck, I even once braved the scam of one of those crane machines to come away with squirrely gold.  Take a look at what lurks behind me as I sit at this computer every day, and then realize it accounts for probably less than half of my collection….

The cover photo for my application to the nuthouse.

Every one of them has a story behind it that could keep a weekly feature here going for a good part of the year.  Unfortunately, a few of them would not tell a tale of sunshine, lollipops, and acorns.  Take the big squirrel in the upper right corner of the picture, for instance.  One of my sisters gave it to me for Christmas a couple years ago, and at the time I had no room to properly put it, so I kept it on top of the dresser in my bedroom.  Sure enough, one day I wound up knocking it to the floor and chipped off a good piece of its tail.  You can see the damage in the uppermost “leaf” making up the tail, as it doesn’t come to a point like the other fronds do.  That’s what shattered.

Welcome to my nightmare!

Last summer, I found the cute little Welcome Squirrel above being sold in the Lawn & Garden department of a different Mecca than the one I work at (One that actually has a decent selection of stuff).  I just had to have him!  The cashier was even very thoughtful and double bagged him apart from the rest of the junk merchandise I was buying.  I get to the car, start tossing the stuff in my trunk, and the first bag goes CLANG right off the hydraulic jack I have in there.  Realizing it was my precious new companion, I unwrapped the bags to reveal that I had just done a Van Gogh on the poor critter, as his right ear was now laying in the bag apart from the rest of him.  Fortunately, the break was such that I was able to super glue the ear back on, and you can only notice the damage if you look very closely around the base of the ear.  It was not only a relief to have successfully reattached the squirrel’s ear, but it was also notable for being about the only time I have ever gotten super glue to actually work (There’s a future Random Rant if there ever was one)…

Maybe I just need some magical glue…

So this morning I needed to do some shopping after work, and while on my way up to the registers I wandered by all of our harvest themed stuff that had just gone out to replace the tattered ruins of what was the Back To School area.  I noticed a tray with a handful of shiny little animal figurines in it, and I’ll be damned if there wasn’t one squirrel in there!  For $2.97, that was a no-brainer.  It went into my cart.

Squirrels in shopping carts are cute.

Once again, the cashier bagged the squirrel on its own.  Remembering my lesson from last year, I took care to make sure the bag with the squirrel in it was on top of everything as I reloaded my cart.  When I got to my trunk, I was going to play it absolutely safe and put the bag with the squirrel in last so there was no chance it would get smashed by another bag I was loading.  So I started to transfer my goods from the cart into the trunk, starting with the two 6-pack bottles of soda I had bought.  I slung them from the cart into the trunk, and watched and listened in unbelieving horror as the handles of one of the bags had gotten wrapped up around the bottom of one of the bottles of Pepsi and went overboard during the exchange, landing on the concrete with a sickening crack.

Yes, it was the damn bag with the squirrel in it.  You’ve got to be fucking kidding me….

Anyone know a good injury attorney?

And there you see the post-traumatic condition of my latest sciurine treasure.  No way super glue was going to fix this one up, but I was able to wedge the two biggest pieces back into its thigh to where it doesn’t look too bad, and I placed him towards the back of my furry gang so that the injury can’t even be seen unless you pick him up and examine his shininess.  But nevertheless, I am still completely pissed off that yet another one of my prized squirrely collectibles had an unfortunate accident due to my outright klutzbucketery.  I figure the next time I encounter a cute little woodland figurine in a store, they’re going to come to life and hightail it to the backroom, lest they end up in several pieces like so many of my other finds.

Boardwalk’s fine, just keep me away from that squirrel breaking douchebag!

And to think I lusted after this…

I’m $75, dude! Keep your squirrel-maiming paws off of me!

Heck, I doubt even Hodge and Podge would be safe from harm in my unlucky hands….

We’re going to die at the hands of this schleprock!

I wonder how many years of bad luck you get for breaking a squirrel…..