Auntie B's Wax

As much as I love watching the suburban wildlife in my back yard sometimes it freaks me out.

The other day I was enjoying some time on the deck, sipping my Diet Dr. Pepper and catching up with my e-mails, when looked over at the fence.  There he lay, on his stomach across the top of the fence post.  His little legs were hanging lifeless, his head and tail were still.

I watched this squirrel for quite a while.  There was no movement.  None.  I watched and watched.  This squirrel wasn’t moving.  At all.

I closed out the e-mails on my smarty phone and switched over to the camera.  Maybe this little guy was just resting very comfortably?  What a cute photo, huh?  So I snapped a picture from the deck.

All flaked out on the fence post. I was pretty sure he was dead.

Then I thought, that squirrel has been laying there motionless for at least fifteen minutes. Could it be some cruel joke played by one of the neighbor kids? He found a dead squirrel and decided to drap it over our fence to freak me out? Or maybe someone was trying to be helpful, getting the dead squirrel out of the grass so no one would chop it up with the lawnmower?

I decided to walk slowly toward the squirrel to see if it would move knowing something was approaching.  Slowly, I walked toward it. Still, no movement. I crept closer, to within eight feet of that little possum-playing devil, before he decided to sit up and take notice.

He’s not dead. He’s just mad because I disrupted his relaxation with my incessant camera clicking.

After spending about twenty minutes trying to figure out if the squirrel was dead or not it was proven that he was indeed alive. Just all tuckered out.

I can totally relate.