When I was 12, I caught a baby squirrel.
I immediately bathed it, and attempted to blow-dry it.
Baby squirrels don't like hair dryers.
They really, really, don't like them.
I planned on keeping it as a secret pet, but evidently, my closet was not a good hiding place for it. My mom found it, and released it into the wild, otherwise known as the backyard.
The following year, a squirrel with two babies close behind her, paraded herself up the steps of our front-porch, and turned to face me. I immediately knew it was the squirrel I had caught the year before.
I sat there, stunned, as the squirrel chattered at me, then promptly turned and marched off.
For many years, I thought it was so cute that little squirrel had come back to show her babies off to me. It was only recently that I realized she wasn't showing her babies off to me.
She was warning them.
Did I mention that squirrels don't like being blow-dried?
These days when I encounter a squirrel, they typically stop in their tracks, stare at me, then turn and run up the nearest tree.
I casually walk past and say, "I see you've heard about me."
;)
(pic courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-squirrel-47547/ )