Squirrel Girl

My freshman year of college I lived in the dorms, Carroll Hall to be exact.  Top floor, so yay for no upstairs stomping/banging/noise.  Carroll Hall was coed, so it was ever so unconventional.  Our floor was half guys and half girls.  It was 4 suites per floor, with 10 people per suite.  Dorm living is EXPENSIVE, and I tried to do the math on how much money NCSU made from just Carroll Hall, but after about 4 commas I gave up on the numbers, but it was ridiculous.

Living with 9 other girls gives you a new perception on life.  You realize that coexisting is... difficult sometimes.  You value the expression of being passive and passive aggressive.  You realize that some fights just aren't worth it.  But you also gain friends and stories and experience at the same time.  Living the dorm life is something that was on the list of things to do before I die, and I definitely got to mark that out.  I also wanted to be in a sorority, but never did that, and I don't feel like I really missed too much.

After Christmas break, we got a new suitemate, who replaced Miss Confused, who had definitely given us some good stories.  The new girl... we will call Squirrel Girl.  All but one of our suities (oh yeah, pronounced like sweeties) was from NC.  This girl was the epitome of NC hick.  Her southern accent dripped from every word that came out of her mouth, she had obviously grown up on plentiful servings of biscuits n gravy (not saying she was fat, just that she was larger), and she was practically bat shit crazy (and the fact that I just used the term bat shit crazy makes ME look like a hick).

Squirrel Girl loved animals, particularly her 2 dogs at home, but animals in general as she was an animal science major and was planning on going to the NCSU vet school.  And by loved I mean, would call home to talk to her dogs and then maybe her mom.  She would talk to them in little baby voices and then get upset when her mom would get tired of the line being busy and say it was time to go that the dogs needed to go out or something.  bat.shit.crazy.  We all felt a particular sympathy for teh Farmer's Daughter, who had to endure Squirrel Girl for the rest of the year.

Early on, Squirrel Girl proved to us just how crazy she actually was, and this is probably my favorite story to tell from living in the dorms.  With the exception of teasing teh Farmer's Daughter over the kissing between her and her former boyfriend when he would leave our dorm at night, we could most definitely hear them.

The round building is the only NON brick
building on campus.  The Brickyard,
(where the people are walking) you
can guess what it was made of.

Raleigh had gotten hit with some rain in Jan/Feb and since it was winter (seasons what?) it was cold (miss that).  You might not know anything about NC State's campus, but its almost entirely made of brick.  The best thing about brick when its wet?  Its slippery (definitely walked home one day in the rain barefoot cause it was safer than with flippy floppies)..  add ice to that..  Its disastrous for a klutz like me.  The weather had gotten so bad that classes had been cancelled for the rest of the day, so I was back in the dorm doing what I did (probably playing WoW with the ex-fiance, who was at his apartment because his work had also closed early).

Usually everyone in the suite left their doors open, except for when no one was there.  Despite the doors being opened, we still used AIM (does anyone even use that anymore?) to communicate vs yelling at each other.  I heard teh Farmer's Daughter's phone start ringing and she walked to teh Jesus Lover's room to see if anyone was there (nope) and then into my room.  She was on the phone with Squirrel Girl, who I could hear was quite hysterical.  Something about needing a bag, and an injured animal, and the bookstore.

A while had passed and I had mostly forgotten about the commotion, as I was working on homework gaming.  Then I heard the door open, and Squirrel Girl came in practically squawking.  She needed to find a way to get this injured animal to the vet!  It was going to die!  It had been sleeting outside and I sure as hell wasn't about to offer to take the 30 minute bus ride (which were probably stopped) or walk the 45 minutes to get to my car to take her and this injured animal to idk where.  Due to all the commotion I did stop what I was doing to be curious what the hell was causing her to be soooooo upset.

(NCSU Squirrel Hunting Club FB)

A squirrel. 

She had managed to stumble upon a squirrel with a herniated disk, a sore throat, broken leg?  I'm not even sure what it was anymore, but it was injured and she had to save its life, it would have died in the cold, ya'll.  I'm not even sure how she managed to get this squirrel into the gym bag, or WHY she's brought it in the building, much less into our suite, and THEN.. into their ROOM.  It was a RODENT!  She was being hysterical, trying to call different animal hospitals in Raleigh to see if any were open (due to the weather) and if they were, did they work on... squirrels.  It still blows my mind.  After that point I couldn't take her seriously, even if I had tried.

NCSU Squirrel, which are definitely strange creatures
(Aditya Desai Picasa)

Finally, after no more sympathy could be fostered for Squirrel Girl, teh Farmer's Daughter and teh Jesus Lover (who had come home at some point) came into my room and shut the door.  Squirrel Girl knew better than to come into my room with her crazy.  We all sat on my bed discussing the amount of crazy that had infected 1002E and how we missed Miss Confused.

At some point Squirrel Girl had finally found an animal hospital that was willing to cater to her Squirrel-y needs.  This girl set out, in her winter boots and her big, bug eyed sunglasses, and her heavy coat, cradling a blue gym bag.  She came back hours later empty handed, cold, and exhausted, but a lot quieter.

I'm not even sure what happened to the stinkin squirrel.  They probably just realized she was crazy and said for her to bring it to them so she would stop squawking in their ear over the phone and then sent her on her way after she dropped it off.  At which point they promptly set the stupid squirrel free outside to run around being a squirrel or to die.  Or maybe they just euthanized it.  Either way, bat.shit.crazy.. or maybe we should upgrade that to frozen.squirrel.crazy?

PS.  This story is the only reason I even know how to spell squirrel correctly.