| It was a couple months ago one of the cute creatures decided to play around the transformer at Bolm and ended up knocking out power for two hours. I had just left to run errands downtown, and returned to a
cadre of artists laughing about the incident and pointing out the fact the lifeless squirrel was still hanging on the streetlight.
A few weeks ago I was waking up from another shortened slumber when the power went out while I was checking some emails. On my way down the stairs, my studiomate opened the bay door from the outside. I jokingly asked if he was responsible, and he shook his head and said, "It's another squirrel." I turned around, grabbed my camera and headed out to see the guilty varmint.
I was shocked to see two Asian men already taking pictures of the lifeless corpse. With my daily quotient of witnessing a living stereotype already filled, I joined these tourists of Austin's East Side and snapped a slew of pictures.
While I was on the phone with the power company to resolve our situation, two cop cars pulled into the long driveway. The first car slowly headed towards me, and didn't seem to be in any mood for humor. He cautiously rolled down his window and muttered, "there's reports of shots fired." I tried calming his nerves by explaining the situation, but he seemed non-plussed. I pointed towards the pole holding the transformer, and told him there was a dead squirrel below. He radioed something in, made a u-turn, and
chatted car by car, 69 style, with the officer following him for ten minutes.
Satisfied with the situation and probably hankering for a deluxe taco plate somewhere in the neighborhood, the officers kindly drove off without another word. It was about fifteen minutes later when the friendly man from the power company switched the burnt out fuse with a thirty foot pole. I sat amazed as he deftly grabbed the old one and positioned the new one into place. It took all of seven minutes.
He was apologetic over the whole affair, saying he would've been done sooner, but it was pretty breezy.
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