one day, several years ago, i was walking home from class at UVa and ran into a girl i only slightly knew. it was one of those all-too-common situations; we barely knew each other, but of course were walking to the same destination, and had a vague acquaintance, so we had to make painful, terrible small talk for 10 or 15 minutes. IT WAS TORTURE, people. now i know what the 6th circle of hell is like, etc.

as we made our way down the hill towards the lambeth apartment complex, chatting awkwardly and painfully and hellishly and probably talking about, like, our common love for diet coke or WHATEVER THE HELL YOU ARE REDUCED TO TALKING ABOUT IN THESE SITUATIONS I DON'T KNOW ("isn't diet coke great?" "OH! i KNOW! it's GREAT!"), i caught view of something out of the corner of my eye on the grassy field, a few feet from our path. it was a squirrel. no biggie, obviously, but there was something...weird. about this squirrel. that i noticed even out of the corner of my eye. the girl with me apparently noticed too, because i could see, in what seemed like utter slow motion, her head turn towards the squirrel, in the very same fashion as my head was turning, seemingly on its own, without my brain telling it to. and we looked at the squirrel. and we stopped walking, stopped talking, stopped breathing. then we looked at each other, grabbed each others' arms, and screamed BLOODY MURDER. we shot the hell off, reached our apartments, and broke down in giggles. terrified, horrified giggles.

we were good friends after that.

i was reminded of this story because i came across this page recently, which shows the type of squirrel that brought us together at that moment. i hadn't previously known. be warned, it's disturbing. but anyway: diseased squirrels: bringing friends together since 2001.

and yes, i'm blogging about squirrels from the crypt at 8:30 on a friday night. time to go out.