When we arrived at Nxabega, our first camp on our African Safari (it still makes me giddy to be able to say that) we were introduced to our camp manager and other personnel. They gave us a nice overview, and during our casual conversation, they mentioned that there was this squirrel that they had rescued when she fell out of her nest. They named her Pocket, and she was sort of semi-tame. I kind of forgot about it, and the next day after our morning game drive, the girls went to shower (I already had) and told me to get a bottle of wine and they’d meet me by the pool and we would write in our journals. I walked through the lodge, and couldn’t find anybody to fetch us our wine. So I headed down the path towards the gift shop hut, thinking that there might be somebody there. Suddenly, this squirrel darts onto the path in front of me. It then comes closer to me, and sits up like a prairie dog. I was very intrigued, but not enough to actually reach out and touch it. I mean, I’d had all my shots, but it could have some sort of African rabies or something. Then, I realized I had JM’s pen. I held it out to the squirrel, and to my delight, she started nibbling on the end of the pen and twirling around it, coming back again and again for more play. I was One With Nature!!! And with nobody around to witness my Dr. Doolittle moment, damn it. After quite a few minutes of interaction, the squirrel ran off, and I found someone to bring us some wine. I was all excited as the girls met me at the pool, and relayed the story of my interaction with the squirrel. “Oh. That was probably Pocket” they said. My bubble was totally burst, thank you very much. As we are sitting there on our lounge chairs at the pool, here comes a squirrel. I said “Hey, I think that’s Pocket!: She ran up onto my chair and then climbed onto the table. And started to drink my wine! I picked up the glass after a moment, and she hung on, then dropped to my lap. Pocket then ran over to Lisa’s chair and started licking the bottom of her wine glass!
Later, we told the camp personnel that we thought we had met Pocket, and that she was drinking my wine. They replied “Yeah, she really likes her Amarillo Ameretto too.” (Pocket may like parts of Texas too, as far as I know. Jeez.) After that, we started calling her Drunken Pocket.
