Squirrels

Squirrels may seem like a strange place to begin a blog, but for anyone that is, knows, or have ever dealt with a “Woman”, you know that we must follow our inner callings. Today, mine is the squirrel (Kingdom- Animalia; Phylum-Chordata; Class- Mammalia; Order – Rodentia; Family – Sciuridae). Today, I have been convinced by the common squirrel that Charles Darwin’s theory on natural selection, “Survival of the Fittest” is flawed. For an animal, that evolved 60,000 years ago, it defies logic and Darwin’s theory that they have not learned to avoid roads or at the very least that when a car comes by to turn and run in the OPPOSITE direction. I am very sure that in my many, many hours of shuttling kids here and there that I have been responsible for the murder of multiple squirrels. While these murders have not been premeditated, they would still be considered vehicular manslaughter and there are countless others that may fall under attempted murder. While in my defense, I have done everything in my power to try to avoid the damn rodents, short of driving my family into a tree, I am still definitively guilty of Squirrelacide. My question is - where is the evolution here? According to the University of Michigan’s Museum of Zoology, squirrels can live from 8 -18 years but on average only live to 7 months – probably due to the multiple car accidents that befall them. One would think that these darn animals would evolve. Shouldn’t the dumb ones be killed off and the ones that understand “DANGER” survive, passing on their developed senses onto their offspring? Darwin, Oh Darwin, the squirrel may be your downfall.