ex(PR)essed

It’s a sad day for the squirrel community here in Grantham. This morning, around 8 a.m., a squirrel, probably over-anxious to stockpile his nest with delicious acorns, “investigated” a transformer and lost his life. How do I know this, you ask? Well, at 8 a.m., I was trudging up the stairs to my third floor office in Old Main. The lights went off. They flickered back on; they went off again. Then it was just dark, save for the emergency lights.

Turns out, the squirrel’s misfortune brought misfortune to the entire campus in the form of a campus-wide power outage. A little after 9 a.m., just when we were all anticipating an early dismissal, the electricity came back on and has stayed on ever since.

As my cute friend Kim said, “I had really hoped that no innocent animals had been harmed.” Me too, but, sadly, we were wrong.

The loss of a life has put my own disappointment about this morning into perspective. I was supposed to lead a mock news conference in a 10 a.m. newswriting class. Morning classes were cancelled, so obviously my plans got changed. Now, I’ve got to look my PR best on Monday too. But really, it’s a small price to pay. After all, some paid the ultimate price this morning.

RIP, Grantham Road squirrel, RIP.