This was (obviously) from my nannying days.. Enjoy!
Perhaps one of the most traumatic things of my entire life happened at the playground yesterday.
Background information. I am a clean freak/germaphobe. Working as a nanny has made me absolutely no better at overcoming this, which some people have attributed to a minor form of OCD.. No matter the case, if I so much as come near a Metro station, change a diaper, or am forced to touch a door handle, I cannot think straight until I can wash my hands. I have been known to dry heave during diaper changes, and admittingly wash my hands like a doctor scrubbing in to surgery. Other people may see this as a problem. I see this as a way of life that prevents a copious amount of head colds.
At the playground yesterday, in typical 2-year-old fashion, the little lady I nanny for was covered head to toe in sand, with her hand lodged in her mouth, trotting around the playground obliviously. I glanced up from my book to see her running toward a black squirrel, who was eating Chex Mix, screaming, “Hi! Hi” (we had a discussion about going up to strange animals, so this was all my doing. So long as she waves and says “hi” from a safe distance, dogs will not bite, cats will not claw, and the world is a happy place… Unbeknownst to me, however, “safe distance” is subjective). By the time I had sprinted over there, the squirrel was more than a little annoyed at her interruption of his bootlegged snack. I snatched her up, and within milliseconds, the squirrel had pounced on my foot like a frog. As quickly as it was on my foot it was off, but I certainly made an embarrassing show for all of the neighborhood kids to see. A toddler on my hip and a black squirrel on my foot, I was screaming to the point that I’m surprised no one called 911.
And now I need therapy.
I quickly ran back to my spot on the bench, poured about a gallon of hand sanitizer on my foot, and resumed my day as normal.. Or as normal as it could possibly be after an experience like that.
If this animal looks at all cute, with its bushy tail and big brown eyes, think again. It a ferocious creature, looking to do great harm… Or, as Carrie Bradshaw says, “A squirrel is just a rat in a cuter outfit.”
