Squirrel Lady

A little story from the world of customer relations:

While working Front of House at the theatre a few weeks ago for a Sunday (this factors in) matinee, a lady came in wearing baby blue wellingtons, a fisherman's cap, and a warm sweater (it was 23 degrees). She was also carrying a wine box. Fine. Weirder things have happened in that neighbourhood. A week or so later I would see a man passed out in his own urine with his penis hanging out lying on the sidewalk. He would get help. Apparently this lady was also in need of some help, as she would explain to my colleague in the box office and myself. She bore a striking resemblance to both a homeless lady who had come into the theatre another time to "look around" and to a regular customer at the organic grocery store who suffered from dementia and once attempted to return lettuce because it was wet (actually), so I was a little skeptical from the get-go.

The patron came up to the box office and asked if there were any tickets still available for the afternoon's performance. My colleague said there were a few, and the patron seemed a little put out. She looked at her box, then outside, then at us. "Oh," she said, "I'd really like to see the show, but, you see, I'm going to require a little special attention." (Red flag).

"OK..." replied my colleague, "what king of special attention?"

The patron launched into a three-minute story about how she walked to the theatre that day and how she usually walked down Huron Street, but today she thought it was so beautiful that she would walk down a different street and she wanted to be early for the show but she only had one emergency transit token and couldn't afford to use it to go and come back (?)... etc. etc. until we got to the point where she mentioned she had come across an orphaned baby squirrel and some helpful passers-by had helped her get it into the box she carried.

The box shifted for dramatic effect.

She would only buy a ticket if we could assure her that nothing bad would happen to her little squirrel. My colleague and I exchanged looks and then told her we could absolutely not keep the animal in the theatre. She protested that we "had to help her" because she couldn't take the squirrel the the Humane Society because they would put it down and there was another organization out in Oakville that might take it but she couldn't get there and so had stood outside a procession of churchgoers leaving Sunday mass, asking each of them if they could drive the squirrel somewhere safe.

Her next request was for a phone book, to look up if there were any Fransiscan monastaries nearby. Her reasoning was that they couldn't possibly turn her away because St. Francis loved animals.

"I'm not crazy, right?" Let me get back to you on that one.

Distraught we couldn't look after her squirrel, the patron left for a few minutes and came back without the box. She bought a ticket, assuring everyone around her that the squirrel should be fine. She then asked me to confirm that the animal would be safe "there." When asked where "there" was, she simply looked at me blankly and went into the theatre.

As the show went on (and I sought proof that we hadn't drifted into the arena of the unwell), one of the venue technicians came up to me and asked if I had a box.

"What kind of box?"

"Oh, you know," she said, "about yay big... big enough to hold a baby squirrel."

Oh heavens. She had been smoking in front of the theatre and a small, injured squirrel had limped up to her, supposedly begging for help with its eyes.

"No, I don't have a box, sorry."

"That's okay, I'll just wrap it up in a hoodie."

My thought was that the poor critter had been unsatisfied with the wine box and was looking for a new savior (Fransiscan or not).

It turns out that squirrel number one was still safe in his box, and by the end of the show there were two squirrels in two boxes around the theatre...

So it remained as I ended my shift. That's what happens when squirrels choose to have babies in a dog park next to a theatre.