On Traveling Zoos Part 4: Squirrels and Eddie Munster

I remember the first time I was allowed into the upper eschelons of the zoo. The building was a two-flat with a basement, and the top floor was where Samantha The Boss lived, along with her favorite pets. Well, some of her favorite pets. The other half were the sick and problem pets, ones that needed special attention because they were either ill, and needed special care, or were too ornery to be given reign in the lower eschelons. One of these was the baby squirrel Samantha had rescued.

Before I introduce the squirrel, I need to explain my relationship to squirrels in general. I am an avid cyclist, and probably due to sheer odds, I’ve nearly hit squirrels several times with my bike. It’s usually (a combination of) neither of us paying enough attention to where we were going, but despite the close call, it was unintentional on both our parts. They usually bounce off my spokes, shake their little skulls into sensibility, and scurry away. It is disconcerting to have one of these creatures bolt across the room and deliberately clamber up your leg, your back, your shoulder and nuzzle right up to your ear and start chattering and chewing on your earing, but that was precisely what happened about two minutes into me being up there. The baby squirrel clearly felt comfortable on my shoulder, and liked the taste of my earwax, because she decided that she would make camp there, even as I strolled around the apartment.

It was my second day here, only six weeks in the Big City, and already I was wearing a squirrel like a foppish pirate. Things were looking up.

In addition to wearing a squirrel pirate-style, I began to feel even more surreal staring at her ‘celebrity’ photographs, the same type you would see in any restaurant hoping to attract the big clientele- the cook or the owner beaming proudly next to Cher, with some sort of personalized autograph and quip, like ‘Thanks for the best ribs in Key West!’ Hers were of celebrities of the pseudo-creepy sort. Robert Engler, the guy who played Freddy in the Nightmare on Elm Street movies was up there more than once, and I got the feeling they probably called each other every so often, sent Christmas cards, inquired about each others kids, etc. In itself, discombobulating, but the one with Eddie Munster was the one that put me definitively off-kilter. It wasn’t so much that it was him, but that it was an adult him. And it wasn’t even so much that it was an adult him, but that it was an adult him in full Eddie Munster regalia- widow’s peak, faux-dracula waiscoat and shorts, the whole bit. Still, I could imagine that maybe he was coming from a comic-book convention that day, trying to milk a few bucks from his former career. What was most disconcerting was that he was clearly tanked, beer in one hand, cigarette in the other, in a kind of raucous, falling-over-at-the-bar cameo shot, the kind of photo you only get of your friends when you go out late on a Friday night. My God. I had to accept the fact that my boss goes out and gets kershnonkered with adult cast members of The Munsters.

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