Me and the Squirrel

     Last week, Sheila and I went to the Florida Caverns in Marianna.  As usual we did not plan the trip, we just got in the car and went.  When we arrived at the check in shack, the attendant informed us that the cave tours were closed on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.  Since we had driven that far, we decided to enter anyway.  The attendant told us there was Tunnel Cave that we could go in on our own, but that it would require us to stoop over the entire length.  We forgot that we had over six decades on our bodies, but when I drove off and looked in the rearview mirror, I could see him chuckling.  Evidently he knew something we didn't.
     It was lunch time so when we arrived at the parking lot, we grabbed a table, walked to use the bathroom and wash our hands.  The day was one of the hottest of the year, but in the shade with a breeze, it was not too bad.  Sheila covered the table and laid out everything.  I grabbed a chair and sat down.  We were almost through eating and had thrown bread crumbs to the squirrels at the front of the car.  I grabbed up the bread box to close it.  As I moved it closer to me a brown twig fell into it.  I thought it was a piece of moss as I saw it laying on the bottom of the Tupperware.  When I reached in to retrieve it, it felt like a piece of modeling clay.  Instinctively I held it up to my nose.  Lo and behold it was a piece of squirrel turd.  I figured that out because there was a squirrel over my head in the vines.  You know I said something ugly and Sheila laughed out loud.  At that moment, he dropped a piece of bark that hit her in the head.  That ended the laughter(for her) not me.
     I had to go wash my hands, but my left hand was useless for the rest of that day.  We decided to walk down to Tunnel Cave.  It was sorta cool in the woods and we reached the entrance after a few minutes.  I knew I was in a mess, because Sheila never backs down from challenge.  Once we were in the woods on the farm and came up on a thicket of bramble vines, I wanted to turn around and go back another way.  She would not have any of that.  "The clearing is just right there", she said and took off.  I couldn't be outdone by a girl so I had to go too.  When we reached the clearing, we both had blood streaming down our legs and my jeans were shredded. 
     As she looked at the entrance, she knew we would have to crawl through the mud to the other side, over a hundred yards away.  "I ain't going through that!" she stated.  "Whew" came out before I could stop it.  She turned to look at me and raised her right hand to catch the word, idiot, as it came out of her mouth.  She strangled it and tossed it to the ground, but I noticed she didn't crush it with her heel as it writhed around.  We walked around to the other side and the exit was smaller than it appeared from the other side.  As we exited the woods on the path, there was the car, just thirty feet away.  Several squirrels were eating the bread crumbs that we had thrown earlier.  One in particular was under the car just in front of the front wheel.  They all had smirks on their dirty little faces, but the one under the car was laughing at me.  I pulled my remote out  of my pocket and mashed the horn button.  They scattered in all directions, but the one under the car jumped straight up, forgetting where he was.  He busted his little head, fell to the ground, kicking his little feet.  When he regained his composure, he jumped up and scurried off to the nearest tree on his wobbly legs.  He had a hard time getting his feet to grab the trunk.  I had the last laugh, so I guess that made me the winner.