It’s a chipmunk. Honestly, I thought it was just a baby squirrel. It’s markings are a little weird, but Wooster is known for its black squirrels–who’s to say there aren’t miniature versions of brown squirrels with little racing stripes down the back? He’s been hanging out outside my dorm for two weeks now, scurrying back and forth between the door and my window. Not causing any sort of trouble. I’d heard of chipmunks, of course, but had never actually seen one in person. They look surprisingly different than the Simon, Alvin, and Theodore I’m used to. Sitting on my bed, my elbows trained on the window sill, I watch him dart back and forth with no clear goal in mind. He stops for a second, sniffs a bit of glass that’s found itself shattered in the bushes, and takes off again. Only took a bit of Googling–Ohio critter, rodent with stripes, looks like squirrel but isn’t–to figure out what I had been questioning for the bulk of the semester.
