Cheap Entertainment

Now that I have to watch what I spend, I can’t go out as much and spend money on entertainment (i.e. restaurants, movies, etc.). Somehow I have to try and find or create my own amusement, which is what I experienced today after school. Given that it is a weekday, I generally do not go out, but this counts as entertainment anyways.

I was just about to turn the tv on to watch the Ellen Degeneres show, and unwind after a day at school. Instead, my mom called me into the living room to come and see something. I was not sure what I was going to see when I got into the room. She was standing in the living room looking out the window, so I went over to see what she was looking at. We have a massive Pine tree in our front yard (the kind that people donate to City Hall at Christmas). As I looked out, this squirrel came scurrying down the tree, dropped a pine cone into a pile and then scurried back up. Now you might wonder what the big deal is, or how this is interesting. Well, the pile of pine cones that had accumulated was huge! And he actually had two piles going. He had the giant one, and right next to it, he had a mini version. I stood there for a little while transfixed on the squirrel. He went about his business, scurrying down and up the tree, dropping pine cones into the pile. I was just so amazed at what he was doing, I couldn’t turn away. It was also very cute to watch. He must have been working on that pile for quite some time, because it seemed more then a day’s work.

Needless to say, I found a form of cheap entertainment that stole about 20 minutes of my time. Now that I think about it, I believe animals are very interesting to watch. When they do not know you are watching them, they can do very interesting and weird things. Or, in the life of a squirrel, they keep on going about their business.

My dad wanted to clean the pile of pine cones away, but I told him not to. I couldn’t let all the hard work of the squirrel go to waste. I am not sure if the squirrel is actually going to do something with the pine cones, but a hard day’s work is just that; hard. This little squirrel worked his tail off to get the pile that big, so he must have a reason behind his methods.

The moral of my story today is that if I look hard enough, I think I can find free entertainment all around me, other then the television. It may not be great entertainment, but it’s different and cheap. Who knows, I may learn a thing or two in the process. That’s good enough for me!

Just so you can have a visual, here is a picture of the pile of pine cones. A picture never does a story justice, but it's better than no picture at all.