Nip

The other night I left work and as I was trying to cross Boylston street a bus that was painted like the Partridge Family bus drove past me. There were strobing lights inside the darkened vehicle and people passed each other laughing and shouting, wearing party hats. The exterior of the bus said something about The 80's Station, or something close to that. I assumed it was an eighties radi station. A girl leaned out the window and shouted and unintelligible question, exhorting me to say something. I guessed and said Yes, Happy Holidays. She leaned back in, shouted something to the man next to her, then remembered to ask me if I was twenty-one. When I said I was twenty eight she tossed me a nip of Bacardi.
A few weeks ago I was standing in the Public Garden looking out at the pond, where the water slowly froze inward from the edge. I noticed a grayish blur in my peripheral vision. I assumed it was a small dog wandering over, but it was a squirrel. It hopped towards me in that weird, mechanical brush-like way they move, with their unblinking bulbous sidehead eyes goggling towards me. It snaked its way closer and closer to me. This happened once ebfore to me, on a coffee break at our summer job landscaping at Reed, where a squirrel just wouldn't leave me alone. It kept hopping towards me, and then, right when I started to think the whole thing was becoming funny...the squirrel leapt into the air and grabbed onto my calf. It's little claws were cold and prickly, and its body warm.