SATIRE

Steve Buscemi Is My Power Animal

I am the squirrel whisperer

I used to talk to squirrels. Once, anyway.

When I was in college, I was walking back to the dorms after parking my girlfriend’s car. It had been a long week and I needed a break from the grueling 20-hour work week and my permanent vacation from my studies.

I stopped on the sidewalk to tie my shoe — I had just moved up from velcro — and I heard a sharp chittering and clicking.

At first, I thought I had ripped my pants. When there was no rip, the logical alternative was that I shit my pants and resigned to hiding in a corner in the laundry room, sucking my thumb, and reliving my favorite Golden Girls episode — I’m a Blanche.

I heard the chittering again — this time it had a snide tone.

It was a squirrel.

My confidence fortified because I had clean and unripped pants, I confronted the squirrel.

I actually confronted the tree. I assumed the squirrel was in it.

“Fuck off,” I said to the still invisible grump.

The chittering grew louder.

I stood up and was almost standing in the leaves when I realized was staring directly into the beady Steve Buscemi eyes of a squirrel.

“Fuck you,” I repeated, looking straight into its eyes. I could tell he wasn’t used to being confronted about his hostility and toxic squirrelness and he was taken aback.

It chittered and clicked again, and he crawled up and back down again, but I didn’t flinch. I was not going to fall for his cutesy squirrel tricks and I was sure as hell not going to take shit from a squirrel.

Not again.

I responded in what I thought was a suitable insult in ‘squirrel’ and the squirrel —

Lost.

Its.

Shit.

I unloaded my day on him. In retrospect, it was a lot, and I kind of wish I hadn’t talked about my personal hygiene mishap — that’s one squirrel who will never forage for nuts again.

Someone had seen me berating the tree and thought it was hilarious, so he decided to come over and watch.

He fled after the squirrel became overwhelmed and scratched me.

With any luck, his life was ruined forever, cringing in fear every time he sees a squirrel looking crossly that it will pull him aside and begin complaining about the state of the world and the fucked up geopolitical climate.

I could see why he was pissed off. He just needed someone to talk to and here I come along and tell him about my personal beer deficit.

“You know, you should really go change your pants,” the squirrel said in perfect Steve Buscemi. “It’s quite shameful.”

Feeling uncomfortable because the last Buscemi movie I had seen at the time was Trees Lounge and I still felt awkward about it.

I woke up in the corner of the laundry room sucking my thumb, fresh from a dream about Blanche DuBois.

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