I am a squirrel, plain and simple. My day consists of… ehm… used to consist of gathering nuts, working on the expansion of my home, and socializing with my fellow squirrels. Ah, those were the days, the lovely days when I was still strong and respectable in the squirrel community. They all say I should get over it, move on, but I can’t. I just can’t. All I can tell you is, I will never step paw anywhere near a tennis court again…

The music blared from the tennis courts (the squirrel grand central). I sighed, momentarily dropping my freshly grabbed twig into place in my bedroom area. It is very inconsiderate of these humans to listen to their music so close to my home. This is one of my more dissatisfied moments with my location. My last one was when a tennis ball unceremoniously smashed a hole in my living room wall.

Stealthily, I moved to my balcony (the edge branch close to the main roadway, fence). Yep, there they were, a mother and daughter from the looks of it. They could almost be twins, except for the hair. Oh…now that was indecent, I thought, as the younger taunted the older, something about not winning a single game. I had had simply enough of it now; after all, my eardrums were beginning to ring! So I jumped onto the expressway to give them the dreaded tail.

Then everything went in slow motion as I reached my central spot on the fence. I watched as the mother hit a lob to her daughter. I saw the gleam of triumph arrive in the girl’s eyes, and then… I saw the yellow ball hide itself from her in the sun’s rays, as I slowly began to raise my tail in the air. I felt my eyes suddenly widen. The girl had miss hit the ball. No, that couldn’t be the ball… WHAP!!!

“Mom, is it alright?” Asked a girl’s voice, wheezing from laughter.

“It doesn’t seem to be moving.” Replied the concerned voice of her mother.

“Why don’t you go check on it?”

Check? What? I wondered as I opened my brown eyes slowly, watching the world begin to spin.

“I can’t believe I hit a squirrel!” Exclaimed the girl, a note of shock in her voice.

Squirrel? What’s a squirrel?

“You’ll have to call your dad.”

“Oh, yeah, I’ll call him after this game.”

“It’s still not moving. I’m going to go check up on it.” Said the mother’s worried voice.

Check? Me!!! I thought wildly. They were going to get me while I was down. With speed faster than lighting, I had myself on all paws and was gone vowing the first thing I would do, even before going to doc’s office, would be to hire some moving squirrels and check into to the lovely palm tree by the pool where, to this very day, I have lived with mild head trauma and the fear of tennis.