I left my apartment after lunch yesterday, got to the bottom of the stairs on the second floor (I live on the third) and there's a squirrel sitting in front of my downstairs neighbor's door. Being of the "Aww, a cute little squirrel!" type, I stopped to watch him do his little squirrel thing, expecting him to freak out and run away. Instead, he puffed his little tail and started shaking it at me. After another "Aww, how cute!" moment, I stepped slowly toward him (had to round the corner to go down the next flight of stairs). He turned like he was going to run, but then he turned back, puffed and twitched his tail again, and took a hop toward me and snorted. Again I thought it was cute, and fascinating. Here's this liiiitle fuzzball threatening me and letting me know that he means business.

I took another step to go around the corner, and again, he hopped and snorted at me. Then again. And again. And once more. At this point, I'm starting to get a little freaked, wondering if this squirrel could be rabid and carnivorous. I stepped again, and this time, the little guy turns, runs a foot or so, turns back, and repeats the hop-snort process until he's close enought that I could have reached down and picked him up. That was a little too close for me, so I hurried around the corner, with the squirrel turning away, hopping back, turning away, hopping back, and snorting at me the whole time. I turned to go down the next set of stairs, which double back and would have forced me to go by the squirrel again. The space between the bars on the railing is way more than enough for a rabies-crazed squirrel to leap through and eat out my eyes once my head was level with him. I didn't want that to happen, 'cause I like my eyes. Instead, I backed up, walked through the breezeway to the back of the building, took the rear stairs, and walked around the building to my car.

A vicious, diseased-brained, possibly flesh-eating squirrel has taken over the front side of the second floor of my apartment building.

Update: Went home for lunch today and thought I'd check up on the squirrel. He was still there.