This internet thing is amazing. Not only can you talk to people and animals from all over the world, but you can also find out about people and animals who lived a long time ago. That’s just what we’re doing today. After all, if someone takes the time to get in touch across time and space, wanting to be my friend, I don’t see why I shouldn’t get to know them, especially after I lost my best pal, Maizie, at the start of the year, which means I could use a few new friends. So, let’s see who we have here, shall we?
Hello, new friend. What’s your name?
Hi, Mollie. My name is French Fry. Back in the forest, we didn’t use names like this, but here with my human family and their friends – it’s what they call me. It took some getting used to, but now I love it here so I’m not even thinking of going back. I was troubled some when I realized that my name is also a kind of human food and I don’t know what my best human friend was thinking when he gave it to me.
I don’t blame you for being troubled by that. I’ll add it to the ever-growing list of strange things humans do. Trust me, there are a lot of things on that list. Anyway, it’s nice to meet you, French Fry. By the way, what species and breed are you?
Most humans first guess that I’m a common chipmunk, but they’re wrong. My full breed is Golden Mantled Squirrel, but it’s easy to mistake us for chipmunks, especially when we’re younger because, until we’re fully grown, we look almost exactly like a chipmunk and fully grown, like me, we look just like a really big chipmunk. Humans who know about us, just call us Golden Mantels. It’s not as cute as “chipmunk” but it’s just another human name of sorts.
And, we really don’t want to be grouped with chipmunks because chipmunks are nuts. They are spastic, always moving like nervous psychos, never sitting still. We rarely socialize with them. We can run as fast, but we stop often to enjoy the world and each other. They don’t. They almost never stop running around.
Got it. Definitely not a chipmunk. By the way, please could you describe your appearance? I know you’ve got some photos to share with us, but please describe yourself too, for the benefit of those who can’t see the photos.
If you’ve ever seen a chipmunk, that’s what we look like. We’re just bigger and some think we’re a bit furrier. Here’s a couple of photos.
Depending on the time of year, I have either caramel brown fur for summer, or greyish brown fur in the fall, with two stripes of black-white-black on either sides of my back. My tail is not quite as long as the rest of me and it is light grey-brown with black specks. My head and ears are brown, but my eyes are jet black with small white fur rings around them. All the humans I’ve met think I’m adorable and they all want to hold and cuddle me. Life could be worse and it was worse back in the forest.
I can imagine. I’ve never lived in a forest myself, but I know the world outside my cage can be scary at times, and that’s with the human caretakers around to keep an eye out for dangerous predators. Speaking of homes, what sort of place do you live in? Who do you share it with?
In the forest, we live mostly in underground burrows, but after coming to live with my human family, they gave the three of us a large cage with fresh food and water and a large plastic jar half full of rag strips that we use to make comfy places to sleep. It is so much better than those dirt burrows. We have branches to climb on and there is a heavy blanket the humans cover our cage with to protect us from weather and large animals that would certainly hurt or kill us. Our human family have three kids and there are one of us for each of them, but the others never really got used to their human. My human is my best friend and I get to leave the cage almost every day to play with him.
Oh, that sounds wonderful! What’s your favourite thing to do?
You’re going to find this funny but my human family has a long board with white and black square stones all in a line and when I jumped on them, a wonderful sound came out. There’s nothing like it in the forest and my friends back in the cage never believe me when I try to tell them about it. I love to run and jump back and forth from stone to stone and make fun noises. Every stone has a different sound. My human family laughs and plays with the stones with me. It is loads of fun.
Yes, it does sound fun. I’ve never seen anything like that, but it sounds like it could be a very fun toy. Speaking of toys, do you have a favourite toy? If yes, what is it?
Hmm, other than the board of stones, I don’t think so. In the forest, we spent most of our time trying to find and save food, but my human family always gives us all the food we can eat, right in the cage, so sometimes the cage was kind of boring. We had small things to play with, but we mostly play with each other, chasing each other around the cage, like we did in the forest after finding food. Our humans change or rearrange the branches in the cage sometimes. What I really love to do is to spend time with my best human friend and his friends. I never have to worry about big animals when I’m with him so I sit on his shoulder near his neck and watch the world or play with his other human friends.
That sounds nice. Yes, I like when the humans change things around in the cage too. It helps keep the cage from being too boring, and gives us something to do other than eat when we’re in the cage. Speaking of which, what’s your favourite food?
Ah – that’s easy. We love fresh vegetables and fruit and nuts. Our humans always give us more than we can eat, but we like to hide some in the cage anyway. Force of habit I guess.
Hey, better safe than sorry, right? Anyway, let’s talk about your human for a moment. So, what’s the one thing your human does that you love most?
Oh, you’ll like this. Our human’s home has a strange window that looks out on the strangest things. There’s always something different going on outside. We can always hear what the people outside are saying and see what they are doing. Our human family watch all kinds of people and even animals doing all kinds of things, even large animals that scared me at first, but the people and animals outside the window never come inside, so I often curl up on my best human friend’s shoulder and watch out the window with him. There’s a lot of strange things outside that window and I don’t understand most of it, but my human family likes to watch it with me. Sometimes they have nuts or other treats while watching and they always share with me. We never got to do anything like this in the forest or be this safe.
Oh, I know about that thing. Yes... They call it a TV. I love watching TV. I can see ours from in my cage... It’s great!
On a less positive note, since humans don’t always do the things we like, what’s the one thing your human does that you hate most?
Only sometimes, he forgets that other larger animals hate animals my size and I have to jump or hide somehow. In the cage we’re always safe - even from the giant dogs who live with our human family. There are cats who sometimes sit outside our cage hoping for a chance to catch us, but they can’t reach us. We stay hidden when they’re around because it’s impossible for us to relax around any kind of cat. There are also a few hawks and owls around, but after they found they couldn’t get past the cage, they gave up.
But my human friend once took me to an animal doctor – another neat thing we don’t have in the forest. I like the doctor – but as we sat waiting our turn one day, I was on my friend’s shoulder and not in a cage when the biggest dog I’d ever seen came in and he saw me immediately. I had to jump and run quickly because the dog tried to catch me. I quickly found a strange burrow beneath the couch we were sitting on where the dog could not fit and hid there until everyone and that dog left. When I did come out the room was dark. I explored and found one room where there were other animals, but they were all in cages and didn’t see or smell me. In the morning, I found the doctor and his helper doing something with a dead dog. I knew the dog was dead because he was cut wide open. It was very strange because I couldn’t figure out why they would be fussing with a dead dog, but I felt safe because that dog wasn’t going to hurt me. Afterwards, my human family came back and we talked with the doctor and then they took me back home with them. Anyway, my human is a great friend, but sometimes he forgets what it’s like to be my size around other animals.
Yes. Sometimes they forget we’re so small, don’t they? I’m glad you found a good place to hide that day.
By the way, I hear your human is a writer. Has he written anything about you? If yes, can you tell us about it? If no, do you think he will in the future?
Yes, yes, he did write a story of how I came to live with him and his family. He told how he sat with me quietly until I felt safe enough for us to be friends and how I learned to trust his family. You have to read it because he really messed up with our first winter came around and he didn’t know that we sleep through winter. I won’t tell you here what he did, but looking back now, it was pretty funny. He gave me the blue words below and said you would know what to do with them.
https://garyawilsonstories.wordpress.com/a-pet-from-the-wild/
I hope you do read it because we have lots of fun together and I love my life with him and his family. He really is the best friend I’ve ever had.
That’s a very interesting story. I hope whoever is reading our interview here goes to read it afterwards. For now though, I’m curious, what do you do while your human writes?
Most often, I’m on his shoulder. He has a shirt with a hood that piles up around his neck and I love to curl up in the hood where I’m warm and safe and there are no crazy chipmunks running around like maniacs.
Sounds nice and cosy. OK, before I let you go, is there anything else you’d like people to know about you?
If your friends read his story, tell them that I am not an “owl coal haul lick”.
I don’t know what that is, but it has something to do with the drink my best human friend gave me when he didn’t know about us sleeping through the winter, then after the story, there was some confusion about it and my best human friend tells people that he’s sorry for what happened and he was only joking about it in the story. I never saw the owl and only tasted the sweet hot water twice because he figured out why I was so sleepy right afterwards and never gave it to me again.
Got it. Hear that people? Just bear that in mind when you go read that story.
It was great meeting you Mollie.
It was great meeting you too, French Fry. Thanks for stopping by.
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Author bio, links, etc:
On graduating from Petaluma High School, he pursued a technical career in electronics engineering which took him into computer manufacturing. He completed his undergraduate degree at Northwest University in Kirkland, Washington where he majored in education. He authored and taught computer science courses for many Silicon Valley companies as well as the University of California, Berkeley Extension.
While he still works for Oracle, he is also still authoring new stories.
You can find his full story collection at his story blog website: https://garyawilsonstories.wordpress.com
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I hope you enjoyed meeting my new friend, French Fry, and learning about him and his human, Gary.
If you’d like to be a friend of Furkid Friday too, send an eMail to keroberous2004@gmail.com with the subject “Friends Of Furkid Friday” – like it says on the “Friends Of Furkid Friday” page. You can also meet friends we've had over in the past via that page, since there's a list of previous "Friends Of Furkid Friday" posts on it.
Squeak soon,
Mollie
2 comments:
Really looks like a chipmunk so I learned something new.
Exceptionally cute!! ;)
Rita:
Glad you enjoyed the cute and educational post. ;)
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