You know how sometimes people start to tell you a story, and you can tell within about fifteen seconds that the story is only going to be funny to the person telling it, and possibly the other person who was involved? Well, the next couple entries may be just like that. So Natasha, I hope you’re reading this.
This weekend, Natasha and I decided to grab dinner before going to see our friend Seamus perform in his hit play at the St. Ignatius Catholic Church and Elementary School on the north side of town. As we were heading toward the restaurant, we saw a man walking what was perhaps the smallest headed dog I have ever seen in my life. It looked not unlike a mouse wearing a dog suit.
The man didn’t even have the dog on a leash, which I suspect is because the dog’s neck could not support the weight of a collar. We both started laughing as soon as the pinheaded pup passed us by, and Natasha said, “It looked like he was walking a squirrel!”
I snickered, “Heh. Walking a squirrel. Totally!”
Natasha smiled, and said it again, “Yeah. It totally looked like he was walking a squirrel. How dumb is that!?”
Then she slowed down for a minute, looked back at the microscopic mutt, and said, “Hey! We should start a new catch phrase! That could be our catch phrase! How come 13 year old skateboarders and Snoop Dogg always get to come up with the popular expressions? Why not Midwestern marketing managers in their mid-thirties?”
Intrigued, but slightly confused, I said, “So… what’s the catch phrase?”
“Walking the squirrel, of course!”
“Oh – that’s funny! But… what does it mean?”
“You know, it means like, you’re stupid. Or you just did something stupid, or crazy.”
I needed a bit more context, so I asked Nat to use it in a sentence.
Natasha kind of squinted, and looked up for a minute as she tried to collect her thoughts, and then she said, “Okay. So say that maybe you forgot to bring the tickets to the play tonight, and you didn’t realize it until the show was just about to start. Then I might say to you, Dang Jenny! Where’s your head at? Are you walking the squirrel tonight, or what?”
I quickly patted my back pocket to make sure I hadn’t, in fact, walked the squirrel. Nope, tickets were still there.
Since I know that active learning is the best way to retain a new concept, I tested out our new catch phrase in a sentence of my own: “Okay, so how about this one – let’s say that I was in a meeting today and our marketing director suggested doing a huge direct mail campaign next Christmas to kick off our new product line, so I lean over to a colleague and say, Man! He sure is walking the squirrel with that idea! You know we’ll never get a good response during a holiday!”
Nat pursed her lips, bobbed her head back and forth, and said, “Mmm… well, I guess you’re using it in the right context, but it just doesn’t quite flow in that situation. Keep trying, though. You’ll get it.”
I shrugged my shoulders, and started heading toward the restaurant. We met Nat’s boyfriend, Farnsworth, there, and she told him all about our new catch phrase. He seemed to really like it, and started testing it out immediately.
“Dude. I had so much scotch last night that I was totally walking the squirrel!”
Natasha’s shoulders slumped, her mouth pulled tight at the corners, and she rolled her eyes as she said, “No! You guys just aren’t getting it. It doesn’t mean drunk. Walking the squirrel means you did something stupid. A bonehead move. Think about it – you’re walking a squirrel. I mean, how stupid could that possibly be? You can’t walk a squirrel! That’s what’s so funny about it!”
Farnsworth gave it another shot, and said, “Okay, how about this? What if a guy I know locked his keys in his car while the car was still running, so then I said to him, Hey – you really took the squirrel for a walk there!”
Natasha and I quickly conferred, and then agreed that “walking the squirrel” and “taking the squirrel for a walk” have two very different meanings. The first one is funny, while the second one is just plain vulgar. I’m not exactly sure why, but it just is.
After we finished dinner, we started to head out to the car to make it in time to get a good seat for the performance. Just as I stepped into the street, two teenage girls on a scooter came burning around the corner, and I had to jump back on the curb just to save my toes.
I threw my hands in the air and screamed, “Hey, you morons! Way to walk the squirrel!!!”
Natasha looked over, and beamed with pride as she said, “Snoop Dogg ain’t got nothing on us.”

[Stay tuned for Friday’s exciting entry, when I explain our other new
catch phrase that will soon sweep the nation: “Crabapple Kid”]

Filed under: General on April 13th, 2005