Here's the thing about squirrels:

They're freaking weird. Even once you get past the fact that they are, in fact, mammals and not rodents (which they should be), you learn that they are not as stupid as they may look. In fact, they are quite cunning and candidly speaking, astonishingly clever and innovative in their methods of annoying their distant mammalian relatives as they pass by (namely, me).

I mean, seriously. Have you seen their tails? That s*** is _translucent_. Why would you have a translucent tail? Is it considered attractive in the reptilian/mammalian world? Or is it some sort of optical illusion they've developed as a survival mechanism, like if they're about to be gobbled up by an alligator or something and they flash their tail at them, the alligator is all,_"Holy crap, that is a magnificently mind-boggling tail!"_ and the squirrel can take that moment to scamper away to safety? I honestly don't know.

But anyway, back to the point:

Squirrels are the spawns of Satan.

Why am I defaming such innocouciously and deceptively charming creatures, you ask? Well, as a resident of northern Virginia, whose squirrel population is way too much in the green for my liking, I have just barely survived a few encounters with these beasts. Take this morning, for instance. Like any other peaceful 9 am weekday morning, I'm walking to class and I pass a long line of bushes when all of a sudden, a squirrel darts out, brushing my left foot before it scampers away into the tree on the other side of the bush.

I nearly lost my s*** right there. Did I mention I was wearing open-toed sandals? I thought I was going to die. Or at the very least, contract some fatal disease and spend my last days on Earth treating an exponentially-growing and painful rash whilst coughing up an impressive amount of phlegm. Thoroughly humbled by the delicacy of my life, I drag my foot into the nearest bathroom and wash the ever-loving daylights out of it, ignoring the girls who stared while I furiously washed/rinsed/repeated my foot, and then go class (which I was STILL early for, by the way. Chyeahhh.)

Okay, so that doesn't sound so bad, does it? But wait; it gets better.

After class, I decide to head to the library to get my research swag on. And lo and behold, _more squirrels_. My previous encounter fresh in my memory, I'm actually quite scared of them. I'm staying on my side of the sidewalk, however, as these two squirrels are on a patch of flat grass about ten feet away.

And then, all of a sudden, one of them looks at me. And keeps looking at me. So I look back, and I don't dare break eye contact.

I am the superior species, dammit.

We're at an impasse of epic proportions, and then, get this, it _hissed_ at me. I kid you not, it freaking hissed. What kind of mammal hisses at you? An evil one that happens to be the spawn of the devil, that kind, I tell you. I half expected it to pick up a twig, point it at me and go "Avada Kadavra!" in some high rodent falsetto. I'm exaggerating, but I know I didn't imagine this. I have witnessed sorcery. Okay, maybe not, but still.

At the risk of giving up my last shred of dignity, I must admit that I power walk the rest of the way to the library and am very, very relieved to have the security of a building between us and the evil critters. Even inside, I don’t dare get a table by a window.

Suffice to say that I will be investing in squirrel repellent in the very near future.