Maybe it has something to do with deforestation or encroaching urban sprawl. Maybe current economic trends are causing people to eat more pizza. Maybe squirrels have been eating pizza for centuries but until the rise of digital photography people were saying “I ain’t wasting film on a picture of some stupid squirrel eating pizza!” Frankly it is above my pay grade to draw any conclusions here.

All I know is that my apartment building just MIGHT wind up being a key location in the history of squirrels eating pizza. Why? I don’t know. Maybe the squirrels thought I’d be sympathetic to their cause after seeing my Twitter wallpaper: a drawing of a squirrel eating pizza I quickly sketched after looking out the window and seeing just that.

In any event, this all started a few weeks back when local house cat Indiana Jones (shown above in a file photo) started meowing at the air conditioner. I first assumed it was a lot of kitty ado about nothing – which is often the case – but then I pulled the blinds up and found myself face to face with the pudgy squirrel standing on top of our air conditioner!

This was all very exciting for the cat, who continued monitoring the air conditioner for many hours after the squirrel had apparently stopped hanging out by our window. I’d completely forgotten about the whole thing until later, when Katy and I went outside and saw a half-eaten slice of pizza shoved under the air conditioner!

I wasn’t convinced this was the work of a squirrel and not just some asshole neighbor who didn’t feel like walking his pizza crust over to the raccoon zoo/garbage shed, and I didn’t think about the whole thing much in the ensuing weeks. I know it seems crazy, but I really didn’t!

And even though there were several occasions after that when Indy would sit and stare at the air conditioner or sniff around it, I didn’t assume this meant that the squirrel was returning. But even a staunch squirrel skeptic like myself has to take a moment to re-evaluate his stance when he walks outside one morning to see this, for a SECOND time:

I think there’s only one rational interpretation: Some squirrel in my neighborhood has forsaken the typical nut-burying routine and is now planning to make it through the winter on frozen pizza. This is a decision I highly respect and identify with!

Then again, this might be a very common thing. I thought I’d discovered some brand new form of squirrel hi-jynx when I first saw a squirrel eating pizza and drew a picture of it, but I then discovered that that others had already documented the living shit out of the phenomenon!

Anyway, if you see some pizza under your air conditioner this winter, now you’ll know why.