the squirrel guy
I was going to combine something I wrote a few years ago with a new idea, but after having read the old piece for the first time in a while I got a kick out of it. Hopefully you will too. I gues this week's theme will be social awkwardness.
The Squirrel Guy
At some point it was decided that dolphin-research should be intensified. I don’t know how or why, but scientists figured out that by studying dolphin behavior we could perhaps learn to better understand ourselves. Before this discovery was made, animal research and funding would have been more evenly distributed, right? There must have been some pretty pissed-off scientists. Imagine spending years observing ferret-mating rituals, only to have to your funding cut in half overnight.
I assume that gradually the best scientists were recruited for dolphin research, while lesser ones were banished to sift through anteater feces or take the pulse of sheep. Whenever I see programs or articles about breakthrough dolphin-research on The Discovery Channel or in National Geographic, I wonder about the less-heralded animal research going on out there. I mean, after the whole dolphin thing blew up, what happened to everything else?
I bet there’s one guy out there who’s quietly regarded as the expert on squirrel research. It could be a woman, but I doubt it. I picture a hunched-over man who mumbles a lot and has a hard time making eye-contact. The only time he shows any emotion is when asked about squirrels, and then he tends to gesticulate wildly as his mouth fills up with saliva from talking too fast. I want to meet this man. Does he have friends? Family? If he has kids, do they respect him, or do they just tell people that their dad is a scientist and leave it at that?
Social circles being what they are, and my desire to socialize dwindling with age, it is rare that I meet someone who has a unique profession. This is in large part a geographical issue; I recently met someone from Houston who was surprised that I didn’t know anyone in the oil business. In New York I meet a lot of graphic designers, film editors, advertising people, teachers, musicians and writers of one variety or another, and despite the fact that these people are often interesting, they tend to have similar stories.
Meeting the man who does squirrel research at a party wouldn’t just make my day, it would make my month. I would interrogate him all night long and ignore his halitosis. We would leave the party and go out to the street so he could better demonstrate the variety of squirrel-movements.
He would get drunk and hit on my wife, and by the end of the evening (after the initial charm wore off) I would begin to realize that he did not smell very good. We would exchange email addresses and he would send me links to various articles he’d published in lesser-known animal research journals, but I would find it difficult to read past a few paragraphs.
Eventually we would lose touch, but for that night I would have made him feel special. And for the rest of my life I would tell the story of meeting the guy who did squirrel research at a party, leaving out the bad parts.
I assume that gradually the best scientists were recruited for dolphin research, while lesser ones were banished to sift through anteater feces or take the pulse of sheep. Whenever I see programs or articles about breakthrough dolphin-research on The Discovery Channel or in National Geographic, I wonder about the less-heralded animal research going on out there. I mean, after the whole dolphin thing blew up, what happened to everything else?
I bet there’s one guy out there who’s quietly regarded as the expert on squirrel research. It could be a woman, but I doubt it. I picture a hunched-over man who mumbles a lot and has a hard time making eye-contact. The only time he shows any emotion is when asked about squirrels, and then he tends to gesticulate wildly as his mouth fills up with saliva from talking too fast. I want to meet this man. Does he have friends? Family? If he has kids, do they respect him, or do they just tell people that their dad is a scientist and leave it at that?
Social circles being what they are, and my desire to socialize dwindling with age, it is rare that I meet someone who has a unique profession. This is in large part a geographical issue; I recently met someone from Houston who was surprised that I didn’t know anyone in the oil business. In New York I meet a lot of graphic designers, film editors, advertising people, teachers, musicians and writers of one variety or another, and despite the fact that these people are often interesting, they tend to have similar stories.
Meeting the man who does squirrel research at a party wouldn’t just make my day, it would make my month. I would interrogate him all night long and ignore his halitosis. We would leave the party and go out to the street so he could better demonstrate the variety of squirrel-movements.
He would get drunk and hit on my wife, and by the end of the evening (after the initial charm wore off) I would begin to realize that he did not smell very good. We would exchange email addresses and he would send me links to various articles he’d published in lesser-known animal research journals, but I would find it difficult to read past a few paragraphs.
Eventually we would lose touch, but for that night I would have made him feel special. And for the rest of my life I would tell the story of meeting the guy who did squirrel research at a party, leaving out the bad parts.
posted by Justin at 2:19 PM
2 Comments:
I'm going to arrange a meeting between you and the squirrel guy. Meet me at Grand Central (under Orion's constellation) tomorrow night at 3:02. We'll be there.
Funny piece. I feel for the squirrel guy, though.
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