A few days ago I was booking it home on the final stretch of a run (Paul was starving and wanted to make something called Meatball Nirvana) when something very large fell from the sky and landed on the sidewalk about a foot in front of me, causing me to scream and throw myself onto a nearby lawn.

When I was in high school we were standing on the deck of the pool one afternoon when a dead seagull fell out of the sky and landed right next to my sister. Honest to god. It was one of the weirder things I’ve ever seen happen in my life.

What almost landed on me during my run was not a seagull.  Obviously.

You know how squirrels make those death-defying leaps between trees 20 feet up and somehow always seem to make it?  Well, this one didn’t.  I have never seen that happen before.  Amazingly, it was fine.  It stood there stunned for a second, looked at me, then turned in a few frantic circles before it scampered back up the tree to probably do exactly the same thing.  Because squirrels are stupid.

I spent the rest of the run wondering if squirrels carry rabies and what would have happened if I were a faster runner and the squirrel had landed on my head.  I’ve had a bird attack my head before while running (true story, ask Paul, he was there) but never a mammal.  The perils of running.

P.S. Picture via here…a website called News for Squirrels.  Really.  How much news can there be.