John R Purcell

The Standoff

The street where Mr. Persky lives is a two lane road in a residential neighborhood, but it is not unusual for him to see many cars and trucks speeding by exceeding the speed limit of 25 miles per hour. This is very hazardous to any wildlife that may attempt to cross the road and Mr. Persky has on several occasions had the unpleasant task of removing and burying the victims who failed to get across safely
One day Mr. Persky was mowing the front lawn as the speeding traffic went by when he became aware of a car slowing down as it approached in the far lane. He then saw the reason it was stopping. A pickup truck had stopped in the lane ahead of it but there was no reason he could see for it being stopped except that perhaps it was having engine trouble. Then Mr. Persky saw another pickup truck come from the other direction in the near lane and it also stopped at the same spot as the first truck, almost as if there was an invisible barrier preventing them from proceeding. The driver of the first truck had stuck his head out the window and was looking down at the road and then Mr. Persky saw what had stopped the traffic. Crouched on the center line of the road separating the two lanes was a squirrel, his nose about two inches from the front tire of the pickup.
Mr. Persky had observed squirrels start to cross the road and then stop in the middle for some reason before continuing across. He suspected that is what happened to this one. He, too, had probably stopped in the middle of the road and then froze in fear when the truck approached.
The driver of the truck was shouting and sounding his horn to get the squirrel to move out of the road. It did not seem to be injured and was probably in shock. When the squirrel did not move the driver got out and gently nudged it with his foot but it still did not move. Mr. Persky had been glad to see that the driver had been caring enough to stop his truck to keep from harming the squirrel but then the next thing he did changed his opinion of him quite quickly. He actually kicked the squirrel causing it to tumble several feet. He was able to regain his feet and run to the near side of the road. As the traffic began to move, Mr. Persky went to see if the squirrel was injured in any way but when he approached it scrambled off into some nearby brush.
It had escaped a near fatal accident to live another day and hopefully learned to keep out of the road.