The Ditziest of the Animal Kingdom

I can't figure it out - are squirrels dumb as rocks, fatal procrastinators, or just plain suicidal?

Surely you've had encounters just like this: a squirrel on the edge of the road, or maybe even in the middle of the lane, sits frozen. You drive/ride/walk unperturbed since the creature sitting on side of the road, is safe from your wheels/boots. At the last instant it darts out, gets to the halfway point between it's former resting place and future certain death, does a double-pump-fake stop/start, and with just barely perfect timing, scoots under the bumper right in front of the wheel of a car going 45 mph, probably brushing tail against the rubber of the tire. Of all the places and times to be on that stretch of road, they pick exactly that time and place. The threat of a crushing death only exists at that spot for 100 milliseconds, but somehow they wait for and find that point exactly.

Yesterday it went a step further - riding the bike up and down the hilly spots on Huron Parkway (on the wide path), a squirrel 100 feet ahead of me runs across the path, and perches on the brickwork ledge between the path and the 4-lane road - about to cross the road. But not until I'm right up even with it does it turn back, right across the path and into me. Too quick to react physically, the flash through my mind is of seeing my first ever bike roadkill with the front wheel rolling over and breaking either neck or back of the creature. Well, in Typical Squirrel Fashion, he/she managed to hit the gap behind the front wheel and back wheel, but didn't count on the rotating uphill Pedal of Death. So for a nails-on-blackboard, sudden-wave-of-nausea flinch-worthy moment, I feel something on top of my right foot as I make half a pedal revolution. The rough part of this: the squirrel was moving left-to-right across the path, which means that unless he jumped THROUGH the frame to land on my foot, he got around the front of the sharp chainring, was on my foot starting when the pedal was at about 3 o'clock, and either got forced off by the returning chain at 7 o'clock, or had incredible reflexes to recognize and avoid the impending doom.

I clipped out and pulled both feet off the pedals to let him out as quick as I could, but I swear, for half a second I could have sworn that I had snapped the back of the little guy/girl. And like that [poof] it was gone. I turned back to look for the wreckage, tufts of fur, blood, or body parts, and found none. Not on the trail, not beside the trail, and nothing formerly squirrel stuck to me or the bike. That squirrel, while apparently having amazing reflexes and/or flexibility, and/or luck, sure is going to have a good story to tell at dinner tonight.