The Prairie Dog Life

The tunnel continues for miles linking buildings to other buildings.  People are walking through in a mixture of winter coats and boots and pajamas and shorts and normal casual business wear.

It's negative Celsius outside in Minnesota and my friend and I have a game that we play. A nightly walk from campus to campus through and around the hospital and back again.  It takes a little more than an hour.  How much time can we spend in the tunnels and avoid the bitter cold outside? Each time we try a different route to see if we can add more time indoors whether it's taking the elevator to a different floor or trying a different branch of the building.

In the Midwest I loved the sun.  I loved being outside whenever I could if the sun were out. The tunnels and skyways were built to protect from the bitter cold and you'd find them in downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul and throughout the U of MN campuses.

Now, in Southern California, I find myself thinking that the time in Minnesota made its mark. I have become a gopher or a prairie dog --  hopping between the downtown buildings and tunnels that link parking structures. The opposite of Minnesota, I find myself shying away from the sun. I'll walk indoors even if it's 25 more feet difference.

The sun is so intense I can barely keep my eyes open. I can feel it burning through my skin as I walk across the street. Looking around for an escape there is an escalator into an underground parking lot.  Starbucks in hand and heaving a sigh of relief, I head down an into the cool, dim lot and then through the tunnels into another lot. It's pleasant down here.  I prefer it down here.  My brain runs through all the sci-fi doomsday scenarios as I note this is a great hiding and escape place if so and so or such and such were to happen and I shelve it in the back corner of my brain.

Climbing the stairs to the exit leading to the sidewalk I open the door.  Heads turn, people look, and I look startled. It's as if I'm mimic-ing the prairie dogs peeping their heads out of the ground during the last visit to Devil's Tower in South Dakota.  Squinting into the light, I look back, scurry across the street, and retreat into the next building's nearest door while the dynamic world outside honks, whirrs, and moves and is then silenced as the heavy door clicks shut.