Prozac Nuts, Depressed Squirrels and Mexican Smuggling

The following story is proof positive I have always been weird. This takes place during the years I wasn't drinking.

When I was a Junior in college I was one of the few people around with a reliable car. Due to the death of my paternal grandmother when I was ten, I had an inheritance that allowed me to purchase a decent car and pay for the first couple of years of school. This meant I had a vehicle that wasn't likely to kill you on the long drive between home (Boise) and School (University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho – pronounced Mos-co, why the fuck there is a W involved is beyond me. Russian conspiracy.)

As such the last day of Thanksgiving break of my Junior year I got a call from a buddy of mine. Robbie was from the town of Lewiston which was a decent 45 minutes south of Moscow, if you drove the exact speed limit the entire way. It was a fairly good sized town right at the junction of the Snake and Columbia Rivers. It's a neat little town at the heart of Lewis and Clark territory blemished by a paper mill that makes the whole area sort of smell like rotting plant matter. But you get over that.

Robbie called saying his ride back to school had bailed and he was wondering if I would come and get him. I was a college student just back in the dorms from a week long vacation and on top of that I was at this point I had just changed my major to English (which is College for Read a Lot of Books and Tell People Why You're Right and They are Wrong.) This means I had copious amounts of time on my hands. So I agreed.

I put on the radio as loud as I could with out giving myself a head ache or a concussion from the bass and drove to his house in Lewiston. The irony is that while Robbie and I met by sheer accident, his father had at one point in my life when I lived with my father in the Moscow area while he attended law school, been my pediatrician. Doctor Robbie's Dad did not remember me until I reminded him I was the kid who dislocated his nurse's knee cap when she tried to give me a vaccine. He asked if I still had problems with needles, I said only when people try to poke me with them.

This is a true statement even today.

Doctor Robbie's Dad loaded us down with food. This as I had already figured out is a staple of any parent with a kid in college. You send them back to school with clean laundry and everything in the house they haven't already eaten while visiting on break. This is because there are two things college kids are bad at: doing their own laundry (mostly because our laundry room in the dorms was haunted by a poltergeist that stole women's underwear and even though I never wore women's underwear I felt my superhero boxers were probably too tempting to resist.) (It was either a poltergeist or the pervy kid from the 3^rd floor.) And the other thing college kids are really bad at is grocery shopping.

If you ever want a college kid to show up for something, tell him there is free food involved. Say free beer and he will bring his friends. To this day Pepper and I will pretty much go anywhere if you tell us free food is involved. Yet again adding to the list of reasons why I am not really an adult.

The ride North to Moscow was uneventful. Full of loud rock music and horrible bouts of geeky laughter. Though Robbie and I hadn't known each other long we had become fast friends. It was the sort of friendship that happens when two like minded people meet and say to one another “you are awesome and so am I.” So while we were busy laughing at bad jokes and puns about the Matrix (because it was cool to do back than, promise) I didn't realize I had accidentally driven up behind The Most Annoying Truck Driver in History.

He was driving a hack job old Ford with a flat bed loaded down with rusted oil drums and wood siding. It was the sort of truck that came straight out of my childhood home town with a whopping population of 375 people, most of whom were probably related and did not have all of their teeth. It was the epitome of Idaho Redneckary (that's a word now.) And the worst part: he could not make up his mind what speed he wanted to go.

When I first came up behind him he was driving close to the speed limit. Which allowed me to drive close to the speed limit. But as time passed he slowed down. Not just a little. A lot. He slowed down so much at one point he was going 45 miles per hour in a 60 mile per hour zone. If that wasn't bad enough, a few miles later (because this was a two line highway and I was unable to pass him legally and it was in fact driving me nuts and I was white knuckling it on the steering wheel inventing ways that velicoraptors would sweep by and just run his god damned truck off the road) he would speed up to around 63 miles per hour. This game repeated over the next 15 miles before the lanes opened up and I had a chance to pass him.

Problem. The passing lane was ¼ of a mile long. And this was when Mr. I Can't Figure Out How the Gas Pedal Works had decided now was a good time to drive 60 miles per hour. So while I was trying to speed around him after going a whole 47 miles per hour, he was speeding up to 60. I was not going to lose out on my chance to pass him, so I cheated.

See, folks, I didn't just have a reliable car: I had a Monte Carlo. One that had been modified by the previous owner for street racing. So when I punched the gas pedal, it was like being in the Fast and the Furious only I didn't have smoking hot Michelle Rodriguez or Vin Diesel beside me. But you get the idea.

I was so done with the ass in the truck that I failed to notice the cop waiting at the side of the road. I breezed past Mr. I'm Inconsiderate of Everyone Else Trying to Drive a Consistent Speed on the Road and the cop, going 75 miles per hour. Whoops.

Insult to injury the Inconsistent Motorist passed me as I pulled over with flashing red and blue lights in my rear view mirror. A bigger man would make a comment about karma and poetic justice. I am not that man.

The real point of this story is not about the fact that giving a college kid with a penchant for adrenaline fueled acts of stupidity a sports car was probably a bad idea, or that speeding will always get you in trouble one way or another. The point of this story is to tell you how I ended up deciding that the reason squirrels on city streets dive under the tires of passing vehicles is because they are suicidal. And it's all because of Mexico.

The cop exits his vehicle and walks up behind my car, pausing to take in my custom licensee plates (which are a reference to a drug song from the 60's even though I don't do drugs, I just happen to like the music of Jefferson Airplane. So much.) He walks with the kind of swagger only a man with a small doughnut belly, a mustache that went out of style before I was born, and a state patrol uniform can muster. He pulls his mirrored aviators off (because he clearly thought CHiPs was the height of television genius) and leaned into my open window asking for my license, proof of insurance and registration.

This is not the first time I've been pulled over in my car (imagine that.) So I have them at the ready and I manage to fish out my license from where it rests in my wallet behind the second most important source of identification: my student ID. I hand him over what he asked for and glance at Robbie. He blessedly waits till the cop is back at his vehicle to make a face at me and I start laughing. Mostly because I'm tired, I'm a stupid kid and I'm fueled by more caffeine than is responsible for any one person to consume (seriously they should do studies on how college kids manage to survive with out their hearts exploding.)

I manage to sober up and put on a some what straight face as the cop comes back. He hands me my information but keeps my license. He stares at us each in turn. His sunglasses are back on his face and I resist pointing out it's actually not that sunny of a day.

“What's in that baggy there?” He asks suspiciously and points to a small plastic sandwich baggy in my center console.

I blink and stare at it, noticing it for the first time. Robbie immediately loses his amused face and we both stare at the baggy together. In all honesty, I had no idea where it came from. There were always people coming and going from my car (this was when gas was cheap so no one thought it weird to have one dude driving all over kingdom come) with various foods, drinks and god knows what else. It was not that unusual to find pieces of trash left over. I pick up the baggy. It's empty.

“Apparently nothing.” I say holding it up.

“Give it to me.” He orders.

I comply. “I think it was a cookie at one point in time. I don't know someone probably left it in here.”

He takes the sandwich bag from my hand and proceeds to open it and sniff the contents. I watch him with my head cocked to one side. “If you're hungry there are some muffins in the trunk.”

Robbie punches me in the arm. “Dude!” He hisses.

I realize in hind sight that this line of thought was one of those moments where I would have been better off keeping my mouth shut (there have been, through out the course of my existence, more than a few of these.) But it's too late, Officer Over Zealous wants to see what's in the trunk. But I can't open the trunk from the interior of my car because it's just not that fancy. So I am forced to get out of the vehicle and walk around behind it, use the key and pop the trunk.

He peers into the impressively sized trunk for a two door car (I could fit a couple of bodies in there – I know because I have done it. They weren't dead or anything. That does not make it sound any better, actually) and asks: “What else is in here?”

“Uhh Cheetos I think. There's some Gatorade. Half of my friend's father's kitchen pantry basically.” In all honestly I was trying to behave myself. But I have innate ability to say all the wrong things from time to time. This was one of those times.

The officer straightens up and makes me face him. “Stand up straight.” He demands.

I do. Rigid spine and everything. I am not very tall. So this left me with a perfect view of his chest. I could see his name plate and badge. For the life of me I can not remember his name because the thing that stuck out the most to me was the little pin under his name that said “25 Years of Service.”

Now, if one has been a cop for 25 years and is even remotely good at their job, I would expect at this point in their career they would have graduated from busting college kids in a speed trap. I would assume with that kind of job experience you would be a detective, or perhaps working the posh gated neighborhoods with the Starbucks on the corner that knows your order because you spend a lingering amount of time there every afternoon. After all, you've put in 25 years on the job, you've earned the right to take it easy in the twilight of your career and enjoy the simple things, like overly sweet coffee beverages smothered in whipped cream. But the next line of questioning would tell me exactly why Officer 25 Years of Service was still busting college kids in a speed trap.

In a serious voice that came straight from the one and only episode of COPS I ever watched he asked: “Where are you headed?”

Readers, keep in mind that I was wearing a University of Idaho sweatshirt. There was a University of Idaho sticker in my back window. On the front driver's side windshield was a University of Idaho student parking permit. When I had handed him my license, in order to do so I had to first remove my University of Idaho student ID. In my trunk, in plain view was a University of Idaho course catalog. It was also the last day of Thanksgiving Break, on the only highway in the entire state of Idaho that leads directly to Moscow. All signs pointed in one direction: North, to the University of Idaho.

But as the cop asked me this question, every fiber in my being at once whispered in a voice only the Devil or the God of Mischief could mimic: “Mexico.”

“What did you say, son?!” He snapped.

“Moscow.” I corrected myself.

“Why are you going there?” He asked with out a hint of irony.

Once again my entire body is seized with the glorious desire to declare the most absurd thing I can think of; and that thing is because I am smuggling squirrels to Mexico. I, thankfully, have learned my lesson from the first two times I just said what I was thinking and keep my mouth shut. This, as it turns out, is also a mistake.

“Hey. Answer me!” He barks.

“I'm going back to school.” Which should have been obvious given that there is really only one reason any one goes to Moscow, Idaho. Hint: it's not for the sheep.

He stares at me suspiciously. He has no reason to be suspicious of me really. Other than being snarky, I am actually at this point in my life living a pretty benign existence. In fact I wasn't even drinking alcohol (even at parties and even though I was attending one of the top ten party schools in the country.) I had tried pot once a year before and it had ended with me hiding in the shower waiting for the Lizard People to come, which effectively put me off the stuff for life (or at least for another year before I tried it again, only this time it ended with me putting guillotine booby traps on the windows of our second story living quarters – I haven't touched it since.) This was pre my days where I name my stronghold Zombie Slayer Central, train dogs to bite people on command and spend my nights obsessing over the Zombie Apocalypse. This was pre the days when I referred to my living quarters as a “stronghold.” So all in all, I am not exactly the Drug Czar of the college campus this guy clearly thought I was.

“Do you know why I pulled you over?”

“No, not really.” This was the truth, because at this point in time I was laboring under the delusion that it wasn't speeding if you just used it to pass someone quickly and get back to driving like a legal citizen.

“You were speeding.”

“I was just passing that guy in the old Ford. He was driving me nuts with the slowing down and the speeding up and the slowing down again. So I just sped up to get around him so I could use cruise control.” Because I had learned after my first speeding ticket that cruise control kept me from being that asshole who drives 80 in a 65.

“You can't do that.” He tells me.

I wasn't exactly the best physics student on the planet, I admit that. Frankly if it didn't involve explosions or dropping GI Joes from the roof I wasn't really that interested. But I did pay enough attention to understand the basic concept that two objects moving at relatively the same speed are not going to be able to sort out a workable single file driving arrangement in the short ¼ mile window afforded them for passing.

“That makes no sense. How else are you supposed to pass someone quickly enough to avoid getting smashed into by oncoming traffic? I mean I had a really small window of opportunity here, so I was always under the impression you just get around the other car and then resume normal speeds once safely out in front so no one dies in a head on collision or because your sports car got run off the road by a guy with a truck from the 70's---” Somewhere inside my brain finally said shut the fuck up, Dean. So I did, silencing myself abruptly and just standing in front of the cop with my lips pressed together like there was glue involved.

“I am going to search your trunk.” He announces. “Stay here.”

Now, just wait one minute. First and foremost he has no probable cause to search my trunk. I am fresh off my Criminal Justice major after realizing working with guys like Officer 25 Years of Service But I'm Still a Traffic Cop were the kind of people I want to punch in the face. But I knew perfectly well he had zero cause to actually search my trunk. And the biggest part of me wanted to reach over and slam my hood down and tell him “Nope! The Squirrel resistance can not be stopped!”

In my head I had a really cool French accent.

I did not do this however. Because while I could have forced him to waste precious time and resources getting a search warrant that would ultimately lead to nothing and get him in trouble for harassing college kids who are harmless, it occurred to me that this is Northern Idaho. I did not want to be the tragic warning of police brutality that gets spread around in hushed whispers on campus and told as ghost stories to incoming, naive freshman. Also, I did not have bail money. So I kept my mouth shut and waved him towards the trunk with the biggest My Parents Were Theater Geeks flourish I could muster.

While the officer searched my trunk I caught sight of Robbie sitting in the passenger side of my car. He looked pale, well more pale than usual because Robbie was a computer science major and that is the major for vampires and guys who remain virgins till they are almost 30. (Robbie was just a vampire, he'd lost his virginity he assured me.) His eyes were wide and his mouth open and he sat backwards in the seat staring at me with a look that said “for the love of god, don't do anything stupid.”

I did not blame him. I am notorious for not being able to stop the snark once it gets started and it was probably apparent to every one present that my Oppositional Personality was raging about inside my head like a bull in a particularly delicate china shop. But I was holding it together, the least he could do was not assume I was going to fail. I grinned at him and gave him a thumbs up. I had this totally under control.

As predicted (by the simple fact there was nothing more interesting in my trunk than a pair of six inch hooker heels used the year before for participation in the Rocky Horror Picture Show) the highway cop found nothing of note in my trunk. Though he did make a point of investigating everything he put his hands on, and even opened Robbie's duffel bag full of freshly cleaned underwear. This appeared to freak him out in that weird way only homophobes can be freaked out by the presence of another man's clean underwear and made me grin ear to ear. I bit my tongue to keep from suggesting Robbie spent his break working as a Rent boy on 5^th avenue. I doubted the cop had the kind of sense of humor one needed to find that joke hilarious (as a side note when I told Robbie what I was thinking later he did the can-can to demonstrate some of his moves. That's why we were friends.)

After breaking open a half eaten bag of Cheetos and spilling them all over the trunk of my car and putting everything that had been very diligently ordered in the chaotic way only I understand into sheer disarray, the cop stood up and closed the trunk. Apparently satisfied I was not, in fact, the college kid Drug Czar of the University of Idaho campus. He wrote me a ticket and warned me if he ever pulled me over again things would be much worse and got into his vehicle and peeled off the side of the road.

Since he was retreating and I was tired of keeping my mouth shut I shouted to the cloud of dirt and dust he spit up while he restored his masculinity by flipping a bitch and heading back towards Lewiston by shouting: “Till all the Squirrels are in Mexico! VIVA LA REVOLUTION!”

It was cathartic.

I got back into the car and stuffed the ticket into the glove box, muttering about what kind of asshole gives a kid a speeding ticket for passing another car.

Robbie was waiting for me with a look that was as much relief as it was confusion. “La Revolution?”

“Yeah. The squirrels in Mexico understand.”

He just stares at me.

“Well that idiot asked me where I was going.” I began.

“The sweatshirt wasn't a clue?” Robbie asked.

“No, apparently neither was all the U of I stuff lurking about. So at first I said Mexico. But real quiet so he apparently didn't hear me and that's why I wasn't arrested.”

“Right, because naturally someone driving North is clearly making a break for the Mexican boarder.”

“That was why I said it, because I felt it matched the absurdity of the question. But then he asked WHY I was going to Moscow. And I mean, come on why does any one go to Moscow?!”

“For the sheep, obviously.”

“Duh.” I say with out missing a beat. “But it got me thinking; Why would someone be driving North on Highway 95 but actually be heading to Mexico? So I decided it was because I was smuggling squirrels out of the country. Not just any squirrels, depressed squirrels. And I had to go North first to throw off the authorities in my smuggling. But the squirrels were depressed because they were living in cities and they keep committing suicide which is why they jump under the tires of your car while you're driving causing you to feel like a real asshole for weeks because you flattened a squirrel. But the squirrels don't have Prozac, so they don't know of any better way to deal with their depression then by committing suicide. But really they are depressed because everyone keeps cutting down their trees.”

“And Mexico is full of trees.” Robbie chimes in.

“Exactly. So now, in my head, I am this great Han Solo revolutionary helping depressed squirrels escape the tyranny of tree-less cities in the trunk of my car.”

“Hey, Dean?”

“Yeah, Robbie?”

“I'm really glad we're friends.”

“Me too. But do me a favor? Next time you need a ride back to school, remind me to clean out my car first.”

“Sure thing.” He agrees as I turn the engine back on in my car. “Maybe we should lace all the nuts in the cities with Prozac? So when the squirrels eat them they won't be depressed. We can make it a nation wide campaign: Prozac nuts for squirrels.”

I pulled out into traffic. “Prozac Nuts sounds like the name of a band. Oh my god we should start a band!”

We never did start a band. But wouldn't it have been a great VH1: Behind the Music origins story if we had?