Reality

I came back in the door from teaching music class this morning, still sweaty and red-faced from the overwarm interior temperature there.  I peeled Mr. Trouble on Two Feet out of his jacket, and turned on the stove to heat up a pot of water to cook noodles.  I walked to the front door and unlocked it.  I reached into the mailbox and pulled out my stack of mail, carefully rubber banded together by my extremely kind mail-lady.  On the top letter was penned “You have a dead squirrel on your front steps.”

Hmmm.  Curious, I went back to the front door in my sock feet  and examined the steps carefully.  No squirrel.  Maybe it magically disappeared?  I went back into the kitchen and then I considered that maybe the squirrel was on the front sidewalk steps.  We don’t use our front door regularly . . .  mostly it’s used by the mail-lady and my students.  I slid into a pair of shoes and got a shovel on my way around the house, and sure enough, on the third step from the bottom was a large, very dead, partially frozen black squirrel, half the size of my large cat.   I scooped him up and disposed of him.

And then it dawned on my that the squirrel was probably there all day yesterday as well.  In the late afternoon, one of my fifth grade boy students came in the door and excitedly told me that he had named my squirrel.  I though he was just referring to the LIVE squirrels that are always zig zagging and chattering around my yard, but in hindsight, I’m pretty sure he was referring to my DEAD squirrel on the sidewalk steps.

It’s a good thing I have a mail-lady who isn’t afraid to keep me informed.  She has probably had to walk by the corpse for several days.