The Day I Met a Squirrel

A few of you have shown interest in hearing the story about the squirrel on my wedding day. Well, here goes!

First, a little background information about me, just so you know where I'm coming from. I've always been afraid of birds and when I was in college one of my roommates said something to me that has stayed with me.

The town where my alma mater is located is a beautiful college town and there are a lot of tree-lined streets. When I was an upper-classman I lived in an old house about a mile or so from campus with a bunch of friends. When the weather was nice (and when the weather was bad) we would walk home from class. There were several routes home and my favorite was one that took me through a quiet neighborhood with lots of giant oak and maple trees. There were always lots of squirrels running through the branches and sometimes they'd jump from branch to branch.

One time when discussing the squirrels, my friend Mary commented that she was always nervous that they were going to jump out of the trees and onto her head as she was walking home.

Seriously? After that, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get the image of a flying squirrel jumping out of the trees and latching onto my face.

Fast forward a few years. D and I are getting married on a beautiful spring day on his college campus. There are clouds in the sky and we're hoping to get as many pictures taken as we can before the rain starts. We're posing for some pictures on a bench, just outside the door to the church.

All of a sudden, we notice a little squirrel standing a few feet away.

Luckily the little guy head in the direction of the photographer.

I'm feeling pretty relieved that I've escaped the attack of the killer squirrel!

That is, until.....

Oh, there's no way! And yes, that is me, throwing my brand new husband into the proverbial line of fire (hey, its every man for himself, here)!

This is the evil little guy...

Pretty proud of himself.

I should add here, that the photographer (who obviously was unaware of my intense fear of squirrels) thought this was the funniest, most awesome thing that had ever happened at someone's wedding. I quickly explained to him in the most polite and bride-like way that under no circumstances were we to encourage the squirrel and any more photos of me with the squirrel would result in him being fired (and tortured).

And that, my friends, is the story of the squirrel who crashed my wedding!