Mrs. McGoo

I have the strangest habit of mistaking sad lumps of anything for something alive. For instance: right now I'm actually looking out at the window at the same time I'm typing and I can distinctly see a squirrel sitting on his haunches looking right at me. It startled me at first as I didn't think squirrels would be out and about in this weather. But it's so sunshiny and almost melty that I thought to myself Of course, it's a squirrel! It's a beautiful day! If I were a squirrel I'd be outside on my haunches, too. But you know as I looked at him I thought how still he was. What an amazing still squirrel! He could be a mime! (No, that's not what I mean. He was like one of those statues in downtown Vancouver that's just so lifelike and then the statue moves and you (read: I) scream and/or jump followed by much laughing at oneself and you realise it's no statue before you but flesh and blood.) So I'm looking at this radically still squirrel who is having a staring contest with me and I've blinked several times and he's won the competition hands down and I'm thoroughly impressed when at some point I decide to squint instead of blink and sadly discover that my squirrel is a dirty grey lump of old snow.

You would be alarmed with the frequency of similar scenarios occurring.

In the north we have birds called Ptarmigans (silent "p"). Once I thought there were a whole bevy of white plastic bags bouncing across the road and only upon closer inspection did I see that my bags were white jaywalking ptarmies. A few days later I watched another ptarmigan picking his way over the snowy road and I chuckled to myself. Silly ptarmigan. Squinted. What? 'Tis no ptarmigan! 'Tis a remorseless white plastic bag!

It's not an I Need Glasses thing. It's an I Confuse The Animate With The Inanimate thing. Or an I Have An Over-Active Imagination thing. Hmmm. Glasses probably wouldn't hurt.

Now when I see a plastic bag lying about I say to myself silly ptarmigan. It makes me laugh every time.
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