G.I Snaffle with the Kung-Fu Grip

[foraker]

Picked the following up off of Craigslist. Can't speak to it's veracity but the visuals it creates are funny.

 

 

 

An original true story, written by a Battalion Fire Chief in a Mississippi town.

 

EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH

 

I never dreamed slowly cruising on my motorcycle through a residential neighborhood could be so incredibly dangerous!

 

Little did I suspect.

 

I was on Brice Street - a very nice neighborhood with perfect lawns and slow traffic. As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me. It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car.

 

I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it -- it was that close. I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me.

 

I barely had time to brace for the impact. Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels, I discovered, can take care of themselves! Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing my oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his beady little eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Banzai!" or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" The leap was nothing short of spectacular... He shot straight up, flew over my windshield, and impacted me squarely in the chest. Instantly, he set upon me. If I did not know better, I would have sworn he brought 20 of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light T-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!

 

Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and leather gloves, puttering at maybe 25 mph down a quiet residential street, and in the fight of his life with a squirrel. And losing...

 

I grabbed for him with my left hand. After a few misses, I finally managed to snag his tail. With all my strength, I flung the evil rodent off to the left of the bike almost running into the right curb as I recoiled from the throw. That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home.

No one would have been the wiser. But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary angry squirrel.

 

This was an EVIL MUTANT ATTACK SQUIRREL OF DEATH!

 

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands and, with the force of the throw, swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact, he landed squarely on my BACK and resumed his rather antisocial and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him! The situation was not improved. Not improved at all. His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him. I was startled, to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result. TORQUE. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at it. The engine roared and the front wheel left the pavement.

 

The squirrel screamed in anger.

 

The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy.

 

I screamed in .. well .. I just plain screamed.

 

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a slightly squirrel-torn t-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, and roaring at maybe 50 mph and rapidly accelerating down a quiet residential street on one wheel, with a demonic squirrel of death on his back.

 

The man and the squirrel are both screaming bloody murder. With the sudden acceleration I was forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle... my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser.

 

About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle (maybe he was an evil mutant NAZI attack squirrel of death), and he came around my neck and got INSIDE my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed part way, he began hissing in my face. I am quite sure my screaming changed intensity. It had little effect on the squirrel, however. The RPMs on the Dragon maxed out (since I was not bothering with shifting at the moment), so her front end started to drop.

 

Now picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a very raggedly torn T-shirt, wearing only one leather glove, roaring at probably 80 mph, still on one wheel, with a large puffy squirrel's tail sticking out of the mostly closed full-face helmet.

 

By now, the screams are probably getting a little hoarse. Finally I got the upper hand ... I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked ... sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of ...so to speak.

 

Picture a new scene.

 

You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork. Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn T-shirt flapping in the breeze, and wearing only one leather glove, moving at probably 80 mph on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by, and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car. I heard screams. They weren't mine...

 

I managed to get the big motorcycle under control and dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign of a busy cross street. I would have returned to 'fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have.

 

Really... Except for two things.

 

First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. When I looked back, the doors on both sides of the patrol car were flung wide open. The cop from the passenger side was on his back, doing a crab walk into somebody's front yard, quickly moving away from the car. The cop who had been in the driver's seat was standing in the street, aiming a riot shotgun at his own police car. So, the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway. That was one thing.

 

The other?

 

Well, I could clearly see shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery from the back seat. But I could also swear I saw the squirrel in the back window, shaking his little fist at me.

 

That is one dangerous squirrel.

 

And now he has a patrol car.

 

A somewhat shredded patrol car ... but it was all his.

 

I took a deep breath, turned on my turn-signal, made a gentle right turn off of Brice Street, and sedately left the neighborhood. I decided it was best to just buy myself a new pair of gloves. And a whole lot of Band-Aids.

 

[Off_White]

It doesn't even matter if it's exactly true, that's hilarious. Squirrels are nasty things.

[catbirdseat]

Already posted by Arlen

[foraker]

Sorry, it was new to me. :-)

[knelson]

Ahh.... I needed a good laugh this AM. Reminds me of a run in I had with a mini-snaffle up on Burroughs Mt one time.

 

The wife and I were taking a quick rest on First Burroughs on our way to Third. I was in a comfy reclined position laying on my pack, munching trail mix out of my little ziploc bag, watching all the little chipmunks scurrying around looking for handouts. There was one in particular that was just camped out at my feet, watching my every bite... it's little whiskers twitching nervously.

 

I muttered something under my breath at it to the effect of "don't even think about" and it immediately bolted up between my legs and perched itself right smack dab in the middle of my nylon-covered crotch and sat up on it's hind legs. It reminded me of playing chess and when your opponent suddenly makes that move you didn't see coming. Oh shit... I've got an angry mini-snaffle smack dab in the motherland. At this point my wife is starting to chuckle, being safely out of chomping range. I, however, was not amused.

 

Not wanting to make any sudden movements, for obvious reasons, I started a stare down match with the little rodent. It wasn't working. I only ended up noticing how nervously his little whiskers twitched and how large his little teeth were compared to his body size. I slowly brought the bag of trailmix up closer to my chest, thinking it was out of reach of the little demon. Yeah... right.

 

As I did that, Mr. Sabertoothed Chipmunk made a dash up onto my chest and parked it within inches of my little ziploc hoard of trailmix. OK... so I'm starting to breath again because now he's just perched on my chest and seems focused on what's in the bag instead of what's under the nylon shorts. Before I could even think about tossing the bag away from me, mini-snaffle lunged at the bag, locked onto it with his viselock jaws of death, and began tugging for all it's worth.

 

Like an idiot, I tugged back. Actually... I was kind of flinging the little bugger around in the air as it was still clamped onto the bag. And yes... I was screaming and cursing all the time at it. By this time, my wife was laughing pretty hysterically. I guess from a distance you couldn't see the little thing attached to my trailmix bag and it just looked like I was having some type of psychotic episode. I was.

 

Eventually, the bag tore... releasing the mini-snaffle from it's death grip and launching it across the rock strewn rest area. I watched as it bounced across a couple rocks, did a couple rolls, and without missing a step - turned back around and headed straight for me again.

 

Well... the brain didn't work quick enough to stop me from flinging my trailmix bag around once the chipmunk was released. So here I am... flinging around a torn bag of trailmix - spraying trailmix in all directions within a 10 foot radius of me. I believe the war cry of my little saber toothed opponent alerted all living chipmunks on that little plateau as to the feast that it had liberated from my ziploc. Now... we could see chipmunks flying over rocks, coming in from all directions.

 

My wife, being the usual wisest one of us, had already packed back up her pack and was on her feet. She'd played out the scene in her mind already and decided it was probably a good time to get back on the trail. I quickly gathered my stuff, drug it down the trail a bit to clear myself from the trail mix orgy going on, restuffed my pack, and headed out. As I was heading out, a couple came upon the scene - chipmunks feasting on trailmix that looked like it'd been flung about by a whirlybird fertilizer spreader - and begain scolding me for "feeding the animals" and how didn't I know if you feed the animals they can't fend for themselves?

 

I'm pretty sure I still had the psychotic look in my eyes as I just bust out in hysterical laughter. As I was leaving, I just mumbled something to them to the effect that I was sure the little fukers would do JUST FINE fending for themselves. Especially the one (as I pointed to it) that was still pawing desperately at it's mouth trying to get shredded plastic out of its mouth.

 

Haven't been back to Burroughs since.

 

-kurt