How Eastern Grey Squirrels Are Celebrating Memorial Day

Honoring America's Heroes

In the United States, everyone has a personal way to celebrate Memorial Day. Here are some ways that eastern grey squirrels are marking the day:

• Chance upon a bag of peanuts with five unopened shells. Eat one and scatter the rest across lawn.

• Discover decaying crabapple on ground, convey to top of fence and take exactly four tiny bites. Discard the remainder.

• Sit still with heart beating so fast that it looks like it ate a Sonicare toothbrush.

• Encounter other eastern grey squirrel, become dual cyclone of fur for fourteen seconds.

• Acquire acorns.

• Conceal acorns.

• Excavate acorns (winter only).

• Ditto, with seeds.

• Pause to reflect on the courage of the US Marines as they stormed the beaches of Iwo Jima during the campaign of the Pacific.

• Gather twigs and forest detritus to craft small nest.

• Watch as gentle breeze dislodges nest from tree with catastrophic results.

• Reconsider the whole “living in a tree thing.”

• Rebuild nest even higher in tree.

• Fail to dig up acorn, be unwitting father to entire generations of mighty oak trees that shall shelter an entire ecosystem for hundreds of years.

• Clean paws adorably.