Squirrel Chasing or the Sights and Smells of the Trade
Yesterday morning I was waiting at the drive-up at the bank when I saw a squirrel run in front of my car. I had this overwhelming urge to jump out of my car and chase it. Let me explain.
College of the Ozarks, my alma mater, is covered with trees. It really is a gorgeous campus- it’s not in the middle of a city, it’s a pedestrian campus and there is a landscaping team that keeps it looking beautiful. But since the place is covered with trees, it’s also covered with squirrels. That’s where the squirrel chasing began.
My friend, Travis (also a C of O alumni) likes to take credit for the phenomenon, but he can’t have been the first person to ever chase a squirrel up a tree. No, I think this is something bred deep into the heart of every C of O student. We see a squirrel, we chase it. It’s just something that we do. Talk to a certain kind of student that currently attends of has graduated from there, and they will say, “Sure, I’ve chased a squirrel. Who hasn’t?” Who hasn’t, indeed. And even now, almost three years later, the want- no, the need- to chase squirrels is still grained deep into my psyche.
Completely switching gears, this is something else that happened yesterday: I saw a woman who was at least fifty or sixty years old wearing a shirt that I could see through. She wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath it. It was so thin that I could see the color of her skin through the fabric. I was justifiably horrified. I mean, I could see naughty bits. (I visibly shudder.)
It makes me wonder what goes on in people’s minds when they prepare for their day. I have seen the lowest of the low when it comes to fashion: the before-mentioned woman with the naughty shirt on, old people with uncomfortably short shorts on, young people showing every part of themselves permitted by law, rednecks wearing shirts with foul language, half-naked women, or a combination of the two on them. And then let’s talk about the smells. I have smelled all forms of BO, urine, and general body-funk. Old ladies wearing too much old-lady perfume to cover up other smells, old men who smell like they have been chain-smoking the entire ride down from Minnesota. The worst smell ever? The old lady who smelled like a combination of stale fried food and too many cats. Stale fried cats. Oh, Lord. I am assuming that every hotel in the city has a shower and a mirror in it, so why don’t tourists use them?
And finally, for everyone’s information, there are some incredibly cute, entirely too short clips from the Rent movie up on the Rent blog. They’re not “clips” per se in that they deal with a specific plot point from the movie; rather they are sort of video montages for two of the characters (Collins and Maureen) with footage from several of their scenes. It made me very happy to come home from a long day yesterday and see those two “nuggets of joy” (to borrow a phrase from Zorak.) I am waiting with baited breath for the Roger montage. Roger is my favorite character, he sings my favorite songs in the show (“One Song Glory,” “Another Day,” and “What You Own,”) and I love Adam Pascal, who plays him. Anyway. This has been a random, disjointed post. Have a good day, everyone!
Brianne <><
College of the Ozarks, my alma mater, is covered with trees. It really is a gorgeous campus- it’s not in the middle of a city, it’s a pedestrian campus and there is a landscaping team that keeps it looking beautiful. But since the place is covered with trees, it’s also covered with squirrels. That’s where the squirrel chasing began.
My friend, Travis (also a C of O alumni) likes to take credit for the phenomenon, but he can’t have been the first person to ever chase a squirrel up a tree. No, I think this is something bred deep into the heart of every C of O student. We see a squirrel, we chase it. It’s just something that we do. Talk to a certain kind of student that currently attends of has graduated from there, and they will say, “Sure, I’ve chased a squirrel. Who hasn’t?” Who hasn’t, indeed. And even now, almost three years later, the want- no, the need- to chase squirrels is still grained deep into my psyche.
Completely switching gears, this is something else that happened yesterday: I saw a woman who was at least fifty or sixty years old wearing a shirt that I could see through. She wasn’t wearing a shirt underneath it. It was so thin that I could see the color of her skin through the fabric. I was justifiably horrified. I mean, I could see naughty bits. (I visibly shudder.)
It makes me wonder what goes on in people’s minds when they prepare for their day. I have seen the lowest of the low when it comes to fashion: the before-mentioned woman with the naughty shirt on, old people with uncomfortably short shorts on, young people showing every part of themselves permitted by law, rednecks wearing shirts with foul language, half-naked women, or a combination of the two on them. And then let’s talk about the smells. I have smelled all forms of BO, urine, and general body-funk. Old ladies wearing too much old-lady perfume to cover up other smells, old men who smell like they have been chain-smoking the entire ride down from Minnesota. The worst smell ever? The old lady who smelled like a combination of stale fried food and too many cats. Stale fried cats. Oh, Lord. I am assuming that every hotel in the city has a shower and a mirror in it, so why don’t tourists use them?
And finally, for everyone’s information, there are some incredibly cute, entirely too short clips from the Rent movie up on the Rent blog. They’re not “clips” per se in that they deal with a specific plot point from the movie; rather they are sort of video montages for two of the characters (Collins and Maureen) with footage from several of their scenes. It made me very happy to come home from a long day yesterday and see those two “nuggets of joy” (to borrow a phrase from Zorak.) I am waiting with baited breath for the Roger montage. Roger is my favorite character, he sings my favorite songs in the show (“One Song Glory,” “Another Day,” and “What You Own,”) and I love Adam Pascal, who plays him. Anyway. This has been a random, disjointed post. Have a good day, everyone!
Brianne <><
posted by Brianne @ 10:05 AM
1 Comments:
At 4:27 PM,
J. M. Richards said…
Hmm...random and disjointed...that's a very clever combination there, Ms. McGill!
I'm trying to think...did we ever chase squirrels together? I definitly remember cracking up about Travis chasing squirrels...that is ingrained into my memory of CofO. That, and fried chicken on Sundays. :)
Post a Comment
<< Home