In Which I Am Blackballed By Chipmunks
There are chipmunks in the area I live; there weren't in the area I grew up, so I'm somewhat enchanted by them. They're so tiny and so fast, and it's almost impossible to get a good picture of them they're so wary.
Today I had my mother and my niece down - Mom to move some of her stuff in, the Nieceling to be out of her family's way during their yard sale. As we came back from our trip to McDonalds, walking through the woods we saw a chipmunk sitting right out and visible. I'm always delighted to see one, and in this case doubly so because the Nieceling insisted there were no such things as chipmunks. What is with 2 year olds? They pick the weirdest things to disbelieve...her brother thought "hamburgers are made of cows" was the stupidest thing he'd ever heard at that age. Fairies? Totally plausible. Chipmunks? Obviously a stupid ploy on the part of grownups.
The Nieceling was delighted, and the chipmunk stayed still till we were right up next to it. We stopped to admire, and, clearly having been fed by humans before, he came right over to us! It was awesome!
...At least until my mom started screaming (she claims she thought it was coming for her), which, as you can imagine, scared the life out of the Nieceling, who began screaming too. I swear, you never saw a chipmunk look so totally stunned in your life as this one did before he ran away.
I will never see another chipmunk again. They're going to hide when they see me coming! LOL
P.S. Why is it that the jobs you put off for six months because you know they're going to take forever and be exhausting, and generally a total pain turn out in actuality to take three hours and leave you wondering why on earth you left them so long?