This is the story of a Honda Valkyrie rider's (not me, my Valkyrie was yellow) encounter with a squirrel. Neighborhood Hazard (Or: Why the Cops Won't Patrol Brice Street)http://lifeisaroad.comI never dreamed that slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighborhood could be co incredibly dangerous !
Little did I suspect !
I was on Brice street- a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me.
It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it-- it was THAT close. I have had to run over animals and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact.
Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered can take care of themselves !
Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes. His mouth opened and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt ! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for "BONZAI !", or maybe " Die, you grave sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short of spectacular.
He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest. Instantly, he sat upon me. If I did not know better, I would have swore that he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack.
Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light tee-shirt, summer riding gloves and jeans this was a bit of a concern. The furry little tornado was doing some damage!
Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, and a tee-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing.......
I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil rodent off to the left of the bike, almost running into the curb from the recoil of the throw.
That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home.
No one would have been the wiser, But this was no ordinary squirrel, This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel. This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH.
Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands, and with the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take me left glove with him! The situation was not improved. Not improved at all!
His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back put an unfortunate twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result.
TORQUE.
This is what the Valkyrie is made for. And she is very, very good at it. The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement.
The squirrel screamed in anger.
The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy.
I screamed in , well, I just plain screamed.
Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly torn tee-shirt, wearing only one leather glove and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back.
The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder.
With the sudden acceleration I was forced to place my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the squirrel to his own mutant devices, but I really didn't want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle......my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser.
About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant NAZI attack squirrel of death) and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-ace helmet with me.
As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel, however. The rpm's on the Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering to shift at the moment), so her front end started to drop.
Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser. dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn tee-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-faced helmet. By now, the screams are probably getting a little hoarse.
Finally, I got the upper hand.....I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked.....sort of.....
Spectacularly sort of....so to speak.
Picture a new scene.
You are a cop.
You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to catch up on some paperwork.
Suddenly, a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn tee-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.
I heard screams.
They weren't mine....
I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street.
I would have returned to "fess up" (and got my glove back). I really would have.
Really......
Except for two things.
First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into someone's yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the drivers seat was standing in the street, aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car.
So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to , "let the professionals handle it" anyway.
That was one thing.
The other?
Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could swear also I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me.
That is one dangerous squirrel.
And now he has a patrol car.
A somewhat shredded patrol car.....but it was all his.
I took a deep breath, turned on my turn signal, made a gentle right turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided it was just best to buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole lot of Band-Aids.
An original true story, written by a Battalion Fire Chief in Mississippi© Daniel Meyer
Taken from
http://lifeisaroad.com/stories/2004/10/29/neighborhoodHazardorWhyTheCopsWontP...
Pages: 1
