Emmie's Field Guide to North American Tiny Mammals

A couple weeks ago, I was talking to Matt on the phone while I was on my way to work when the important subject of chipmunks came up. Or to be more specific, chipmunk tails. I no longer recall the context of the conversation, but that's not important. What is important is that it was immediately apparent that Matt did not know what a chipmunk's tail looks like. Picture it in your mind. Think of a chipmunk's tail. Got it? Okay. Matt foolishly claimed that a chipmunk's tail was "sort of fluffy and about three inches long." HA!

"You're clearly thinking of a squirrel," I told him. "Chipmunks have little tiny tails, and the fur flicks out in kind of a V-shape."

I thought for sure that he would change his tune once I explained the truth, but he stuck by his ridiculous opinion that chipmunks have long, fluffy tails. I calmly explained that I could envision a chipmunk's tail very clearly in my mind, and to further bolster my argument, I told him about the time that I picked up a possibly rabid chipmunk and held him in my hand for a few minutes before he put the entire tip of my middle finger into his mouth and bit down.

"So basically, I have had much more experience with chipmunks than you, so I am an authority on this subject." I might have also called him an idiot, but I'm not sure.

As soon as I got to work, I headed to Google so that I could prove him wrong once and for all. And let me tell you: I was shocked and dismayed by what I found there. Picture after picture of chipmunks with LONG, FLUFFY TAILS. You think I'm crazy? Take a look.

At first I thought, well this must be some kind of special species of long-tailed chipmunk. Regular chipmunks have the little flicky tails that I imagined in my head. Well, let me assure you, after a good half hour of Wikipedia research, I am confident in saying there is no such chipmunk living in this part of the country that is tailless. It appeared that even Alvin and the Chipmunks had rather bushy tails. WHO KNEW??

I was totally baffled. It had been SO CLEAR in my mind. The cute, little wisp of a tail. Where had that image come from?! After scrolling through a few more pages of Google Images, I found out exactly where it came from:

AHA! Jiminy Christmas, that was it! That was the exact tail I had in my mind! Effing Disney strikes again. They had poisoned my mind to such an extent that not only I was utterly convinced that chipmunks had tiny little tails, but I was also certain that I had seen them that way in nature. Disney is SO good at mind control, that you don't even know when you've been brainwashed. Amazing job, Walt, seriously.

So I admitted to Matt that I was wrong, and I apologized for perhaps, possibly calling him an idiot. But I just couldn't get over the feeling that my whole world-view had been knocked out of whack. I mean, if I was that certain about chipmunk tails, and I was that far off, what other things am I "certain" about that are actually untrue??? THINK ABOUT IT. Mind = blown.

And for the record, I asked several friends what they thought a chipmunk's tail looked like, and they all described it the same way that I had been imagining. How Matt became immune to Disney's mind control, we'll never know. Particularly since he has been to Disney World twice, and I have been zero times, as he likes to remind me on a near-weekly basis.