When a Squirrel Attacks

I never thought I’d ever have to use bear survival skills against a squirrel.

It was a lovely day in southern California, the sun was setting and I decided to take the trash out at work before it got dark. As I am at the dumpster I turn around and notice a squirrel across the street in a bush.

I say hello to the squirrel, as I say hi to most of my animal friends, and noticed it was looking at me in a way I have never seen a squirrel look at me before.

I thought it wanted to look at what I had just put into the dumpster as it started to run across the street. It was such a cute little squirrel I wanted to film him on his adventures but as I was filming I noticed it was not curious about the trash. It had never stopped looking directly at me and wasn't heading towards the dumpster but towards me.

In the past I have come across squirrels that get their tails all fluffy and start swirling it around. Those times had been very obvious flirty squirrel behavior moments, but this time I could tell that it wasn’t an emotion of love. This squirrel was different.

I stopped recording the squirrel as soon as I realized I needed to be aware of my own safety and this wasn't just a cute squirrel moment, this was not a friend.

I was too far away from my building's door to fully run back to it and I wanted to keep my eyes on the squirrel as it was slowly getting more aggressive.

The squirrel chased me into the middle of the street never breaking eye contact with me, tail swirling, and it begins to squawk. I have never heard a squirrel squawk like a crow almost. As it’s squawking, it takes a couple steps towards me, this is when I really got scared.

I’ve never been scared of a squirrel before and it’s a little embarrassing to admit, but this squirrel was not like other squirrels. I’m also not a small human. I am quite tall and I have never been in a position where I thought a squirrel was going to try to attack me before, but it tried.

You know in school when you are taught how to survive various animals in the wild? Well squirrels were never on that list. So I defaulted to bear, the one I know most besides shark, and this was a land attack so I went with bear survival. I never thought I would have to scream and raise my arms in the air to make myself even bigger than I already am trying to scare away a little crazy squirrel.

He didn't back off at first either. This squirrel is the bravest and craziest squirrel I had ever seen. He made one more lunge at me before running back to his bush, I could finally get back inside to safety.

Now this part is probably my own fault. I was just so shocked that this had just happened that I wanted to go back outside and see the squirrel one more time. Did I just imagine that or did a squirrel just try to fight me? So, I went back out.

This time I made sure I had an escape plan and could get back inside quickly if needed. I see the squirrel in his bush and he sees me.

In the middle of this bush is a tree, and I see him go up to the top of it. I didn’t know if he was going to jump towards me with some flying squirrel action since he has already proven to me to be a squirrel like no other.

He just sits at the top of it and stares. He clearly wanted to be at a higher eye level than me because now the squirrel was looking down at me which honestly was a bit intimidating because at least before I was the tall one. We locked eyes for a solid minute just trying to figure each other out. Then the squirrel jumps down the tree trunk and runs out of the bush towards my direction.

I just wanted to see if we could be friends, but I had to yell at him to stay away as he was squawking again and went under my truck. So, I went back inside and left it alone. Our friendship wasn't meant to be.

About five minutes later I look out the window and see that squirrel fighting with another squirrel rolling around in the dirt. I couldn’t tell if those ones were friends or if that was an actual fight because they look like they were having fun. Admittedly I might have been jealous of them as I just wanted to have some squirrel friends at work.

Today's learning lesson is that the squirrels outside my sim racing facility are evil and they are not like my squirrel friends that live next to my home. That is my story of the scary squirrel.

The End