Life in Ann Arbor (first in a continuing series)

Alternate title: Things White People Like #1242: Crying Over Roadkill

This is the archetypal Ann Arbor story, because it contains three key elements:
1) Idiotic, oblivious Michigan drivers
2) Our giant fucking squirrels
3) Over-the-top lefties
All that was missing was if this had happened on a Football Saturday (instead of just now, a random Tuesday), and the squirrel had been wearing a maize-and-blue Steve & Barry's $5 t-shirt under a North Face jacket. But I still feel like this is better than anything my uncreative brain could have come up with.

I'm walking home from my office, chatting on the phone with Mrs. Tomasi, when all of a sudden this squirrel darts across the road, toward the side I'm walking along. It doesn't quite make it - the front right tire of a dark-colored sedan crushes its body, and I can tell right away this squirrel is done-for. In my four-plus years here I've grown accustomed to seeing brazen squirrels the size of ocelots doing whatever they please, including playing in traffic, but this is the first time I've actually seen one get hit. To say I was traumatized would be too strong a descriptor (I'm no PETA member), but it definitely shocked me and made me feel bad for a local squirrel for the first time in a while.

Unsure of what to do, I stopped walking, and just watched the squirrel writhe and wriggle its way to the curb, leaving a small pool of blood in the middle of the road where the accident had occurred. It's a tall curb, with the sidewalk raised a few feet off the road (coincidentally, this all happened in front of a cemetery), so once it got to the side there was nowhere for the squirrel to go. I wasn't about to approach the squirrel and either try to help it (rabies!) or put it out of its misery (squeamish!), so I just stood there watching.

Meanwhile, the offending car (the crime: accidental squirrelslaughter) had slowed down and thought about stopping, but must have realized it's a squirrel and there was no sense getting out. The next car in line, right up against the assassin's bumper (of course - this is Michigan, the state which makes Masshole drivers look like a flock of Safety Steves), also drove off, probably oblivious to the rapidly-escaping life just to the passenger side. But the third car came to a dead stop, despite the presence of another car immediately behind it. After about 30 seconds, a middle-aged woman, wearing large round tinted glasses and an extra-short haircut, emerged from this third car, an old Plymouth, and immediately began wailing. She bent over where the squirrel was still writhing and started bawling, then stood up and yelled hysterically in the direction of the dark sedan, which had long-since disappeared around the bend.

Oh, did I mention that the Plymouth was covered in bumper stickers, including a two-foot diameter Obama decal on the passenger side door? (I'm sure you just assumed, based on her behavior.) Now, I've made clear that I'm a good progressive/liberal, and the other writers of this blog have surprisingly shifted to the left recently (thanks, John McCain!). I'm happy to see fellow Obama voters, especially in a state that until recently was considered a dangerous swing state, but now seems to be a blue lock. I'm also heartened to see liberals concerned with living creatures, following our party's caring philosophy rather than avoiding (like I was) the gruesome scene.

But still... this was a squirrel. A rough estimate is that there are thirteen squirrels per person in Washtenaw County (source: Council on Statistical Exaggeration), with a life expectancy of maybe another couple of years. It also wasn't the case that the dark sedan was aiming for the squirrel, nor did it have any chance of avoiding the soon-to-be deceased without swerving into the raised sidewalk or oncoming traffic on the one-lane-per-side road. While I joined the crazy liberal woman in feeling sad about another senseless tragic squirrelcide, her reaction was above and beyond the appropriate level of pathos.

I hightailed it out of there (is that a pun?), not wanting to be yelled at for gawking idly while one of God's (or perhaps the Triple Goddess') creatures suffered. As I walked away, I could hear the woman, still cursing the sky, or perhaps the impatient driver behind her. I sent "get a grip" vibes her way, my sympathy for the squirrel worn away by the PETA-types who value the life of a small animal over the safety of humans.

Just another day in Ann Arbor.

(No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post. At least, none that weren't already hurt.)