I was driving down the freeway early morning last week and turned on the news to get my daily dose of angry political rhetoric. Instead, I heard the beginning of a news story that I don’t think I’ll ever forget—“A man was arrested for feeding meth to his squirrel.” I almost careened off the freeway.
There was so much wrong in that one sentence. But it got worse. Apparently, a man kept a squirrel as a pet (which is illegal) and to keep it aggressive as an attack squirrel, he fed it methamphetamine. I kid you not, an “attack squirrel.” The suspect denied feeding meth to his squirrel—and for the first time ever, I found myself wanting to believe a meth dealer. I wanted to believe that rock bottom was as low as a meth dealer could go. Feeding meth to a squirrel? Definitely lower.
Obviously, he had oversampled his product to the point of thinking a squirrel would make a good pet, let alone an attack pet. God forbid a burglar break into his home wearing an acorn-patterned shirt …
When the police searched his property, they found
meth, drug paraphernalia, firearms, body armor … and a squirrel. I couldn’t help but wonder how they found out the squirrel was on meth. Did they do a blood test? Did the squirrel look unusually thin? Was the squirrel distancing himself from friends and family or stealing money from his mom’s purse? Whatever the reason, I just prayed that the squirrel would find his own self worth, complete rehab and maybe move to New Zealand to start a new life.
The news story ended with this—“The man was charged with “illegal possession of a squirrel.”