(Submitted by reader J. D. Mack)
Sometime back in the 1990s I was riding my bike through a residential neighborhood in Bethesda, Maryland. Suddenly, I felt something like a giant hand slapping the top of my head. This was followed by the sight of a squirrel running away from my vicinity.
What had happened was a squirrel had fallen from a tree and landed on my head. Now think about this. We’ve all seen squirrels leap from tree to tree, but have you ever seen a squirrel miss and plummet to the ground? I haven’t, so I would count that alone as being a fairly rare event.
But what are the odds that one of these rare falling squirrels would land squarely on the head of a moving cyclist? I don’t know the exact odds, but I suspect that one would have a better chance of winning the lottery with a single ticket than having that happen to them.
[EDITOR: Now think about THIS: How embarrassed was that squirrel? Probably not as embarrassed as this one was to see itself on YouTube after this bender…]
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ikH9ZRcF2Q
Great story. You should have sent a picture of what you head looks like from the viewpoint of a squirrel in a tree. Did you have a hat on?
Five days ago or so, I submitted a comment to this post, and it has not yet appeared. if there was a problem with it, please contact me about it by email. I assume that you can see the email address that I enter when I submit a comment.
Thanks.
Sorry about that. Because of the included link it didn’t auto-approve as it usually does, and the request for moderation was somehow missed. It’s been approved now. We don’t get very much held for moderation, so it’s not impossible for them to slip through the cracks for a couple of days. As comment traffic increases we’ll up our vigilance.
Thanks, Jarrett. Feel free to delete this little subthread, if you like.
BTW, any interest in the Tuesday Birthday Problem?
There’s definitely some interest. We’ll be in touch shortly with questions and/or a request.
Cool. Look forward to hearing from you.