We love buying stuff, don't we? We love grabbing things off the shelf at stores of all sizes - Target, Walmart, Macy's, JCPenny, Reliance, Spencer's, Subway...
We spend our currency notes on food, clothes, gadgets, homes, jewellery - not caring how much is necessary for the moment, for short term and in the long run.
Do we really save stuff for a rainy day? Or a wintry night? Seeing families neck deep in debt after spending their lives - spending, cannot quite think so. I am loan free, but I have no savings. So, I've not really saved up for my rainy days!
A few weeks back, my friends taught me a lesson in savings.
The only difference - they are not humans. They are animals, and not of the dog or cat variety. They are squirrels.
I am still figuring out how we humans end up addressing an animal as `it'. Yet, in the following paragraphs, I may do just that. Bear with me.
My friends - squirrels, keep me company in this alien land called USA, and do not know it. These squirrels that hover around my porch door when hungry. Sometimes, even when not hungry - snow or sun. And give me a lesson or two in the process.
Over to the lesson now: Savings.
I pushed the hallway to porch door's knob downwards, by which time Ms/Mr Squirrel was desperately standing up on hind legs, almost holding the short front legs together to twiddle thumbs in anticipation.
It peeked into the door, for any signs of movement that would result in - peanuts (groundnuts). With a handful of peanuts, I pushed the door open. The alert one sprinted around quick. Not sure if it was out of the food-at-sight excitement, or fear instinct. I dropped peanuts outside of the door, but just close enough to watch it eat before it shut it completely.
Before I knew it, the little one was devouring those peanuts away, even if meticulously. Teething into its skin first, rolling the peanut between its front legs that work as hands now, and biting away. At this note, I decided to give it some privacy.
Two minutes of some kitchen work later, the squirrel was still at the door. Peering into the living room still. Giving those, `Please give me more...pleaaase!' looks.
`Hungry still little one?'
I grabbed a few more peanuts and dropped them by the door, the squirrel dutifully scampering a feet away. This time, only four peanuts went in to its pint sized tummy.
The next thing: it held on to two peanuts, not with its front legs/hands, but in its mouth. It then rushed towards the tree in our backyard and somewhere near the tree, dug up the grass a little, to hide the two groundnuts. After this, it came back, filled its mouth with another nut, went off in another direction, dug a peanut hideout, buried the peanut by carefully bedding the mud over it, and came back. The exercise continued for the next 15 minutes, as I gasped, clocking its movement.
`So that sympathy evoking look was for your nut-saving bank?' I was annoyed. Nay. Mock-annoyed.
Mr/Ms Squirrel's pals did the same thing over the following winter weeks. Ate a few nuts that I dropped by the door, and dashed off to hide the rest over painstaking minutes, in their mud-hole banks. Over the weeks, I have got more confused about when the squirrels are actually hungry. Still, their banking enterprise stuns me.
These bitsy squirrels know exactly how important it is to conserve for a rainy day! Look at us humans! Spending away all that we have for something more - be it fame, house, painted beauty! Fooling ourselves that what we're spending is investment for anticipated future income - in whatever form that could be!
We spend our currency notes on food, clothes, gadgets, homes, jewellery - not caring how much is necessary for the moment, for short term and in the long run.
Do we really save stuff for a rainy day? Or a wintry night? Seeing families neck deep in debt after spending their lives - spending, cannot quite think so. I am loan free, but I have no savings. So, I've not really saved up for my rainy days!
A few weeks back, my friends taught me a lesson in savings.
The only difference - they are not humans. They are animals, and not of the dog or cat variety. They are squirrels.
I am still figuring out how we humans end up addressing an animal as `it'. Yet, in the following paragraphs, I may do just that. Bear with me.
My friends - squirrels, keep me company in this alien land called USA, and do not know it. These squirrels that hover around my porch door when hungry. Sometimes, even when not hungry - snow or sun. And give me a lesson or two in the process.
Over to the lesson now: Savings.
I pushed the hallway to porch door's knob downwards, by which time Ms/Mr Squirrel was desperately standing up on hind legs, almost holding the short front legs together to twiddle thumbs in anticipation.
It peeked into the door, for any signs of movement that would result in - peanuts (groundnuts). With a handful of peanuts, I pushed the door open. The alert one sprinted around quick. Not sure if it was out of the food-at-sight excitement, or fear instinct. I dropped peanuts outside of the door, but just close enough to watch it eat before it shut it completely.
Before I knew it, the little one was devouring those peanuts away, even if meticulously. Teething into its skin first, rolling the peanut between its front legs that work as hands now, and biting away. At this note, I decided to give it some privacy.
Two minutes of some kitchen work later, the squirrel was still at the door. Peering into the living room still. Giving those, `Please give me more...pleaaase!' looks.
`Hungry still little one?'
I grabbed a few more peanuts and dropped them by the door, the squirrel dutifully scampering a feet away. This time, only four peanuts went in to its pint sized tummy.
`So that sympathy evoking look was for your nut-saving bank?' I was annoyed. Nay. Mock-annoyed.
Mr/Ms Squirrel's pals did the same thing over the following winter weeks. Ate a few nuts that I dropped by the door, and dashed off to hide the rest over painstaking minutes, in their mud-hole banks. Over the weeks, I have got more confused about when the squirrels are actually hungry. Still, their banking enterprise stuns me.
These bitsy squirrels know exactly how important it is to conserve for a rainy day! Look at us humans! Spending away all that we have for something more - be it fame, house, painted beauty! Fooling ourselves that what we're spending is investment for anticipated future income - in whatever form that could be!
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