D, my friend, is afraid of squirrels. I love D. She is funny, even when she doesn’t mean to be.
NY is not the place to be afraid of squirrels. They are all over the place. She avoids parks. Rarely goes near them and never when she has been drinking. It was on one of those occasions that the conversation came up. We had been out to dinner. Had a few glasses of port and was walking through the neighborhood. Her fear of squirrels came up. I know some people with odd phobias. Feathers of instance. There is a person I know that is scared of feathers. A male bartender that is afraid of butterflies. Phobias don’t have to make sense. The reaction is real enough.
So when D told me she was afraid of squirrels. It seemed reasonable enough. To many NYers. Pigeons are rats with wings and squirrels are rats with bushy tails. When I asked her why, I’m not sure what I expected. but I didn’t expect this.
“A Squirrel tried to kidnap me.”
What???? Of course I hadn’t had that much to drink. D repeated and added to her previous statement.
“When I was a baby a squirrel tried to kidnap me.”
I must have looked doubting because she explained it was true. Her father told her so. She was out with her mother and father, sleeping in her baby carriage when a squirrel tried to take her away. No type of “well maybe the squirrel…” had any effect on her. Her father told her and that was it. A reasonable woman in a medical profession decided that squirrels freak her out because of a story her father told her as a child. The story doesn’t freak her out. The truth to her is a squirrel did try to take her away.
So is it wrong that I want to get her this for Father’s day?
If I have to ask it probably is. But I can’t help it every time I see a squirrel I think of D.
I’m just happy that D phobia of squirrels is very mild and she just gets a little *insert bad pun here*.
