Squirrel!

He stared right at me, watching as I lifted another bite of taco salad to my mouth.  His black eyes fixated on me, neither his nose or tail betraying a twitch. 

Was he that hungry?  Would he come after my delightful combination of lettuce, tomatoes, cheese, chili, sour cream and seasoned tortilla bits?  My car windows were open. 

Suddenly he jumped (or did he fly?) off the chain-link fence out of sight.  Was he going to sneak in behind me when I wasn’t looking?

After watching a movie about talking guinea pigs I was nervous.  In the movies, the special agent guinea pigs’ human-like intelligence was revealed when a system was developed to communicate with them. If rodents had such capabilities, what would stop them from ganging up on humans and taking over?  Who’s to say they’d be on our side?

I suppose a squirrel would only go nuts over… well, nuts.  What if I had been eating a bag of roasted peanuts like they serve at baseball games?  Would he talk his squirrelly friends into raiding the car?  What if they chewed the brake line or something more sinister?

I wonder if there are levels of intelligence in the rodent world like there are in the human world.  The squirrel that was staking out the small child on the sidewalk yesterday and suddenly darted out across the road in front of my car, might be on the lower end of the squirrel intelligence scale.

Either way, I think we underestimate the growing legions of squirrel, guinea pigs, hamsters, and other rodents who are conspiring together to take over our world.  I’m sure the brazen little fella on the fencepost was on some scouting mission of sorts, trying to find our weak spots and preparing to attack. 

Beware, my friends, beware.