“You’ll be wasting a pretzel on that one,” I said, nodding toward the panhandling squirrel that had raced up to our group and was about to assume the full cute position.

“Squirrels will eat most anything,” said the woman.

“Not that one,” I said. “I’ve been watching it. It’s here just about every day.”

“Like you can tell one squirrel from the next,” said another woman who was walking with us.

“All I’m saying is there’s one that hangs out every day at quitting time between Building 5 and the parking garage,” I said. “If you give him anything but a peanut, he’s rude.”

The woman bent and handed the squirrel a pretzel. He took it gently enough, then almost immediately spiked it hard to the ground, then ran off toward some other state employees on their way to their cars.

“Beggers can’t be choosers,” she yelled after the squirrel, then muttered something about greedy tree rats.

“I wonder if they just get so much stuff given to them they think they can pick and choose what they like,” I said.

“And slam down what they don’t,” she said. “Jeez. It acted like my pretzel was offensive.”

 “That reminds me,” said the only man in our group. “Has anyone seen the hawk lately?”

“Not for ages,” said the pretzel lady.

“Yes we did,” insisted the other. “Just the other day at lunch. Over where the tulips were. Remember?”

“That was not a hawk,” she said. “It was a turkey or a vulture or something.”

“Maybe it got chubby,” said the man. “Remember–we had that plague of squirrels last year.”

“It was awful,” said the woman closest to me. “Squirrels clear up to here. We were wading in them.”

“Bet that was hell on the hose,” I said.

“Imagine what a plentiful food supply like that would do to a hawk’s waistline,” she said.

“Doubt the poor thing can even get airborne anymore,” said the man. “No more swooping down on prey for him. Bet the best it can manage is to chuck rocks at ‘em and hope to get lucky.”

Or get smart enough to position itself between Building 5 and the parking garage at quitting time and learn how to beg.

* * *  

I apologize for failing to get the names of those amusing people who were walking with me and promise to hereafter carry a notebook so I can start giving credit where credit is due.

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