Squirrel and Moose

My brother told me last night that a squirrel walked across the road in front of his car today and he ran it over. These things do happen but squirrels usually run across the road in a frantic attempt to beat the on-coming vehicle.  Ted said that this squirrel was walking, in a rather despondent way.  I asked him if this was in Lebanon (Maine) and he said it was, as a matter of fact.  I said that a moose was killed in Lebanon last night when it was hit by a mini van.  The squirrel was probably friends with the moose and was so depressed that he lost his friend that he committed suicide by walking in front of the car.  Seems like a logical explanation.

In the interest of anthropomorphism (see posting from May 19th), I told Ted that I would have to write about the poor squirrel committing suicide and would be assigning the moose and squirrel names.  He went along with it (only making fun of me a little) and we assigned the moose the name Marvin and the squirrel the name Sammy.

The story goes

So Marvin the Moose was strolling through the woods in Lebanon, Maine on a balmy spring night when he decided to cross the road.  Why?  Well if we don’t really know why the chicken crossed the road, how could we figure out the road crossing motivations of a 700 pound moose?  Anyway, Marvin decided to cross the road and WHAM! he was hit by a minivan, bounced up on the hood, into the windshield and bounced back onto the ground.  And that was the end of Marvin the Moose.

The word spread through the woodland community the next morning of the unfortunate demise of Marvin.  By mid afternoon it finally reached the ears of Sammy the Squirrel.  Now Sammy and Marvin were best friends.  They had grown up together and, although much different in size, had a lot in common (mostly a love of lying in the grass and seeing what shapes the clouds looked liked) and treated each other like brothers.  When Sammy found out about his best friend, he couldn’t take it.  “I can’t live without Marvin” he thought.  So he wandered to the road, waited for the next vehicle, which happened to be driven by Ted and slowly walked into the road and into the path of the car.  Squoosh.  Ugh. Pain. Then nothing. Sammy’s spirit left his little broken body and drifted up and over to the trees.  Looking down at the mass of fur in the road, he wondered what would happen next.  Then he sees Marvin standing under the tree.  “Marvin!” he yells, “Up here!”.  Marvin looks up and Sammy’s spirit scampers down the tree and prances around Marvin’s spirit’s feet.  Best friends, united in death.

But wait….were their names really Marvin and Sammy??  After all, weren’t there a famous moose and squirrel pairing?  Why, yes there was!!  Rocky and Bullwinkle.  Oh my goodness!!  Bullwinkle died and my brother killed Rocky!!  O the horror.  O the humanity!  No, wait, they are animals.  O the animality!

Ok…I think that is where the story needs to end.  When I start to make up words that means it is time to stop and let it go.  Unless “animality” is a word…hmmm…time to look it up on-line!