Herding

Every once in a while, your job asks you to do something that makes you feel that you're really making a difference. Helping visitors find their way around, giving tips to freshmen and their parents, setting up for a red cross blood drive...all great. Today was different; I had to herd a squirrel. Yes, a beady-eyed, scraggly-ass gray crap nature squirrel. He decided today was the day to visit the art gallery in the Union. And the desk decided that Alex (with Cassandra as sidekick) was the man to call to remove him. The call, verbatim (as I remeber it) "Hey, Ops, ummmm, yeah, we have a SQUIRREL down here, and, ummm, I'm not really sure who to call, sooooo, uh, can you guys take care of that?" What the Fuck? Because obviously, We are qualified to take care of any building disturbance, including insane little furry animals that seem to have found their way into the fucking building. But, we didn't have shit to do besides read the Daily Tar Heel and go buy Diet Cokes at the student stores, so we rolled out. Evidently, herding squirrels isn't like herding cows. Cows are big, and relatively slow, and if you go behind them, they go the other way, like a logical animal. Squirrels react like running backs on cocaine; at you, away from you, juke left, spin move, hurtle the potted plant, across the chubby girl's backpack, over the chemistry kid's legs (still wearing headphones, quite startled) into the glass window, into the door, back from the door, and past me out the door (as I jumped to avoid him). Yes, Animal control is the next thing going on my resume. And no, I wasn't scared of the squirrel, he just startled me. Seriously, this was a scraggly squirrel; he wasn't healthy with a tail that looked like a cheap wal-mart toliet brush.