[Note: I originally posted this as an extremely long comment somewhere else.]

I had a pet squirrel once. Several squirrels, actually. The tree in front of my girlfriend's place housed a family of squirrels, at least five of them. One day we noticed an adult squirrel squished in the street. We thought nothing of it until three days later we heard a horrible squealing noise from the front yard.

Apparently the flattened squirrel was a mother. Her babies were starving and left the tree to look for food. There were four babies. Two of them went down the tree and ended up at the edge of the street where they were too small and weak to climb back up the curb. One of them went up the tree and was stranded on a high branch. The fourth didn't have her eyes open yet, so she just clung to the middle of the tree and wailed.

We collected the four of them and called a vet to find out what to feed them. A quick trip to the store and they were up to their eyeballs in kitten formula and baby cereal. We nursed all of them for a few weeks, then gave three of them to a friend in the country who had done this kind of thing before.

We kept the one who had closed eyes when we found her. A few days after we found them, her eyes started opening. The right eye opened first, followed by the left eye a few days later. Naturally we named her Popeye.

We kept Popeye for a few months. She'd sleep in a cardboard box in the corner of the dining room. She'd eat from a saucer on the kitchen table. We even had that squirrel housebroken.

We knew we'd have to let Popeye loose eventually, so anytime we were outside, we'd bring her with us. It must have been a few dozen times I answered the question "hey… is that a squirrel on your head?" I always felt so naughty when I'd respond "would you like to pet my squirrel?"

It was pretty cool having a pet squirrel. Strangely, the best part was also the worst part: the grooming. The squirrel really bonded with us. She identified us as family. So during quiet moments she'd climb onto out shoulders and pick at our hair. I assume she was trying to "clean our fur" or something like that. It was sweet, that unlikely bonding gesture. But it was also surprisingly painful. She'd grab a small bunch of hairs, four of five maybe, and yank in quick, sharp movements.

After "grooming" one of us, she'd then move to one of our laps. We finally realized that she was waiting for us to groom her. That's when we knew the party was over. Popeye needed to be with other squirrels.

We took a day or two to get a grip on the idea, then we put her on the back porch and closed the door behind us. Dumbasses that we were, we didn't check the weather report. It rained like hell that morning.

It made for a tough day, listening to our former pet scratching at the door like a cat and making chittering noises that sounded suspiciously like a squirrel version of "what are you doing? I don't understand."

My girl's grandmother was very disapproving through the whole thing, but turned out to be the biggest softie out of all of us.

Every morning Grandma would walk to the bakery and buy one plain cake donut. She'd put this donut on a saucer and set it on the back porch. Then she's watch through the window as Popeye picked at it throughout the day.

A few times we'd play dumb and ask what she was doing. She'd always make something up about checking the weather. That made us grin, and we never pressed the issue.

For a few more months, Popeye would still hang out with us whenever we'd go outside. Then we started seeing her with other squirrels. Eventually, she stopped coming near us completely. One day she stopped picking at the donuts.

That girl and I eventually broke up. But I never stopped scanning the trees in her neighborhood, looking for a squirrel I recognized.