A Squirrel vs. A Car, A Sad But True Story

I had my day laid out like this for today:

1.  Go feed the parrots that I'm sitting for this week
2.  Go get coffee
3.  Go to the grocery store
4.  Go to the flea Market searching for abused silverware
5.  Home to write this week's blog posts
6.  Work on pet toys to donate to 1 Day Ranch for animals displaced by the Shawnee, OK tornadoes.
7.  Go to the Gym

In reality, I only checked off number 1 on my list by noon time today!  You see, as I was about to round the last corner before Starbucks when I saw a squirrel in the road.  As I moved more to the center of the road to avoid hitting him, I realized that he wasn't able to move his back legs and was desperately trying to drag himself to the side of the road.  Sadly, he could do nothing more than spin himself around in circles.  I watched the cars behind me drive passed him as I rounded the corner and then turned myself  around. 

Photo Credit:  Wildlife Rehab of Greenville...this is not the squirrel I found!

Ugh!  Now what?  Lucky for me, Lowe's is directly across the street from the Starbucks that I was heading for and they had just dispatched a delivery truck with two fine gentlemen who were headed in my direction.  THEY were the only ones to stop and see if everything was okay.  As I started to say, "yeah, yeah, thanks for asking,"  I realized they probably had what I needed in the truck.  Turns out they were willing to part with a big ole Lowe's blanket and had gloves in the truck, mind you they weren't leather but it was something to protect my fingers from those painful rodent teeth.  Not only did they have what I needed, they picked up the squirrel and helped me wrap him up. 

So, feisty squirrel wrapped up in the car and I'm headed to the emergency vet secretly wishing that when I get there they'll reward my bravery with free vet care that will save this little guy.  Although, my realistic side knows better than that, but a girl can dream right?  As I'm driving to the vet who is about 15 minutes away I'm thinking about what just happened and realize that I didn't properly thank these two Lowe's employees who went way above and beyond the call of duty, so I called the store.  I didn't even know their names.  Now I know that I can thank Ken and Blake from the Greer, SC Lowe's Store!  Thanks guys, really!  You knew the fate of this little tiny creature and yet you stopped to help anyway.  Your compassion is something to be admired.

Sadly, our squirrel passed away on the way to the vet.  But at least he was in a quiet and calm setting rather than stressing out on the side of the road.  No living creature deserves to die like that.

Do you have your local rescue on speed dial? No?  Now would be a great time to do a little research and find the folks closest to you who can handle animal emergencies such as this one.  It might take a few moments or even a few hours of your day, but don't the animals that we share the planet with deserve that?  With all of our fancy houses and lawns stealing habitat from them and our fast cars running into them constantly, isn't it the least we can do?  And now, I'll step down from my soapbox and let you ponder the message.

We'll return to our regularly scheduled dumpster diving tomorrow.