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Yesterday was a typical first-Sunday-of-the-month at the Store, by which I mean "balls-to-the-wall insanity". Every single checkstand is open and yet we still have lines 5-7 people deep, the cart room is empty and the cart clerk is struggling to even find any in the parking lot to bring in, it's not physically possible for us to be any busier than we currently are. I'm running the grocery floor on the evening shift, and I'm on my way to the front aisle to see what we need to refill the deli display on "the Wall" (the aisle at the front of the Store where we display all the big sale items).
As I'm walking past the doors, I hear a woman behind me scream. I turn around just in time to see a squirrel running around her ankles. I screamed "What the hell!", because that was absolutely not something I was expecting to see happen. The woman kicked at the squirrel and it ran and hid behind the coffee vending machine by our exit door. My boss happened to be in the area at the same time, and he opened up the maintenance closet, grabbed a push-broom, and shoved it under the coffee machine to shoo the squirrel out, and I then proceeded to puff myself up and run at the squirrel, screaming and hooting. It ran out into the vestibule and hid under the bouncy horse. I kicked at the horse and that sent the squirrel running out the doorway and around the corner, where it scared another lady as it ran around her ankles on its way away from me.
We've had animals get into the Store before. There've been occasions when birds have gotten in, made a home for themselves, and foraged the produce department for weeks at a time while fluttering about and pooping somewhere that I don't know where it is, and I don't care to know because I don't want to be the one to have to clean it up. (We eventually had to close the store one night and bring in a guy to lure them out and shoot them.) We've had a few mice. We've had unaccompanied dogs run wild once or twice, dashing up to total strangers and trying to make friends with them. There was one time a stray cat somehow settled in our back room. I've never seen a squirrel get in before. I'm surprised it was even so bold to go in through the front doors with so many people going back and forth constantly.
In the end, it was more amusing than anything else; I'm going to be able to tell my co-workers about "the squirrel incident" for as long as I work at the Store. I'm just glad there wasn't a customer with a dog nearby when the squirrel got in - that would have quickly turned into a disaster.
As I'm walking past the doors, I hear a woman behind me scream. I turn around just in time to see a squirrel running around her ankles. I screamed "What the hell!", because that was absolutely not something I was expecting to see happen. The woman kicked at the squirrel and it ran and hid behind the coffee vending machine by our exit door. My boss happened to be in the area at the same time, and he opened up the maintenance closet, grabbed a push-broom, and shoved it under the coffee machine to shoo the squirrel out, and I then proceeded to puff myself up and run at the squirrel, screaming and hooting. It ran out into the vestibule and hid under the bouncy horse. I kicked at the horse and that sent the squirrel running out the doorway and around the corner, where it scared another lady as it ran around her ankles on its way away from me.
We've had animals get into the Store before. There've been occasions when birds have gotten in, made a home for themselves, and foraged the produce department for weeks at a time while fluttering about and pooping somewhere that I don't know where it is, and I don't care to know because I don't want to be the one to have to clean it up. (We eventually had to close the store one night and bring in a guy to lure them out and shoot them.) We've had a few mice. We've had unaccompanied dogs run wild once or twice, dashing up to total strangers and trying to make friends with them. There was one time a stray cat somehow settled in our back room. I've never seen a squirrel get in before. I'm surprised it was even so bold to go in through the front doors with so many people going back and forth constantly.
In the end, it was more amusing than anything else; I'm going to be able to tell my co-workers about "the squirrel incident" for as long as I work at the Store. I'm just glad there wasn't a customer with a dog nearby when the squirrel got in - that would have quickly turned into a disaster.
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