Unusual Edition by The Found Walrus
October 9th, 2008 5:18 PMTranslated into pictogram format, and hand-painted onto... juvenile squirrels.
Boy And Girl Fall In Love.
Or, in pictograms: Male + Female = Love.
Before you accuse me of animal abuse, a quick explanation. I work at a wildlife rehab center, and we get a great deal of orphaned baby squirrels. Because individual feeding programs or treatments vary, we identify the squirrels by marking their heads with tiny splotches of harmless, technically edible paint.
However, the point of this rehab is to actually release the squirrels once they're large enough to survive unaided, and so we are incredibly careful to avoid too much human contact; which risks habituating the squirrels. We don't ever touch them unnecessarily, and we certainly don't ponce about painting abstract symbols onto their heads.
But these guys needed a repaint anyway. Or there might have been terrifying, destructive, ultimately world-ending confusion among the ranks as squirrels were mistaken for other squirrels.
Win?
Male
I used too much paint on this one. He will have a blue head for a few days. I just hope no one notices. After I painted each squirrel, I took off the extra paint and made the symbol into a nondescript splodge.
Plus
I went through a very long period of moral soul-searching before this task. I really am normally very conscientious about my center's strict no-unnecessary touching rule. But compared to the volunteers we have who insist on cuddling squirrels... and this lot did need a repaint anyway... I figured an extra minute or so of human contact was forgivable.
Female
I was more conservative wtih paint on this one, which is better for the squirrel's coloring, but worse for picture quality.
Equals
This squirrel was particularly angry, and expressed itself forcefully. To wit: "SQUEAKsqueaksqueakSQUEAK"
Love
This one, in my opinion, came out the best.
Reference
In profile. I had this picture anyway from a previous feeding session.
cute extra shot
26 vote(s)
- Lincøln
- Ink Tea
- Amithy Ilexa
- emma ungoldman
- Morte
- saille is planting praxis
- Amoeba Man
- Mad Beth
- Tøm
- zer0gee
- Mr Everyday
- LittleMonk
- Loki
- teucer
- rongo rongo
- Waldo Cheerio
- Charlie Fish
- Kid A
- Stinky Pants
- artmouse
- done
- V M
- Sean Mahan
- Togashi Ni
- N Mutans
- Mauro Vanetti
Favorite of:
Terms
votelater, wildlife, animals, love, squirrel15 comment(s)
I give you 3 points for most likely being the weirdest completion, and for being nice to animals. I figure do unto them as you would unto yourself, and I might be known a little for painting on myself.
I liked this - so there you go. Have some fake vote points :>
TINY SQUIRRELS!!!!!!!!!
okay, so I've been meaning to comment all morning and still haven't gotten past that. So there's you're comment. Win.
That's the strangest medium for a book I have ever seen. Freaking awesome.
The walrus is flattered!
Thank you! I did do it because I thought as a task it had bizarre value. I really like tasks where the tasker discovers something completely amazing in an apparently mundane object (like toast), and this wasn't one, because squirrels are pretty awesome in their own right. But I still thought it was at least, as a book medium, pretty freaking strange.
Squirrels. Awesome! Early form of written language. Excellent!
THIS is what kept me happy recently when I was sick in bed for a week. My brother brought me reports of tasks, and the idea of squirrel books... Fantastic.
That's really a honor, especially coming from someone who did such an awesome completion. Reading that made me feel warm and squirrelish.
Also, glad to hear you're well again and tasking fit.
Whoa. Baby squirrels. And the story fits, since each baby squirrel is surely the result of a boy squirrel meeting a girl squirrel...
Win. I must come by this place sometime..as said above
I figure do unto them as you would unto yourself, and I might be known a little for painting on myself.
painting is fun...specially when its on people..
I love it.