Today on my walk I was pelted with acorns. Oh, yes! Only one hit me- on the collarbone- but others came close. Fortunately I am as quick and lithe as a fox. At one point they were falling all around me. Well not falling because there was obviously some external force propelling them towards the ground. I couldn’t stop and look up until I had cleared the canopy of oak trees. Oak trees, my city-dwelling friends, produce acorns. Maple trees produce no such weaponry so I was safe under their leaves.
I looked back and up. I could see the squirrels. They seemed frenzied. One always has to be conscious of rabies out here. A friend told me his 80-year old grandmother had been peaceably dozing on her deck when out of nowhere a rabid squirrel pounced and sunk its fearsome teeth into her calf. Another time, this same lady impaled her leg on a picket fence. Lucky? Not so much.
But these squirrels were legion, and they were in full autumnal mode. If you know anything about squirrels, you’ll know that their intelligence is minimal. Just witness the suicide tactics in front of cars if you want proof. But somewhere along their evolutionary path they have realized that if they throw an acorn onto the tarmac from a height it will split the hard outer casing or at the very least in a few minutes a car will come along and crush it for them. Of course then they run into the road to collect their prizes and get run over. It’s like they had this one flash of brilliance and then no more.
However I think this is why they were throwing nuts this morning. Either that or it’s something personal. I did refer to them as tree rats in a sequel to The Curious Misadventures of Feltus Ovalton but that wasn’t ever published. They can’t possibly know about it. Can they?!
Or maybe it’s another lucky event. In Italy to be ummm, annointed by a flying bird is incredibly good luck. Most particularly, I understand, if the annointment lands in your mouth.
So it could be that being struck by an acorn thrown by a squirrel at a velocity great enough to bruise flesh is luck of an extraordinary degree.
(You may ask yourself why is Jo preoccupied with luck these days? It’s because my new WIP is entitled “Lucky” and my agent is soliciting it now and it all seems —the 4 leafed clovers, the acorn…— so darned serendipitous).
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