The other day a girl I know came up to me and asked, "Are you still writing that column about websites?" I said that indeed I was, flattered and astonished that she even knew I wrote a column about websites at all. She then proceeded to tell me about this website she had started about furry animals that look like beavers. "It’s for those times when you see a furry animal by the side of the road and you ask yourself, ‘Is that a beaver?!’ and then you realize that it isn’t, but it’s still fun! You should write about it," she said. I looked at her, not knowing quite what to say. In my head I was thinking, "Huh? I don’t quite get this." Out loud to my acquaintance I said, "Are you kidding? I will totally write about it! What else am I going to write about?!" She then handed me a yellow Post-It with "www.beaverlikemammals.com" written on it.
Honestly, I was skeptical. I am entirely in favor of useless things (especially useless websites, God knows). But this one sounded not so much useless as much as it sounded like a private joke that I wasn’t in on. I gave it a go anyway: In operation since April, the site is a repository for various BLM (the site’s shorthand for "beaver-like mammal") sightings everywhere from North Garden to Peru. Some sightings come complete with pictures or video, some sightings are merely missives attesting to the fact that a sighting had occurred. It took me a bit of reading to get into the groove of the site, but I am happy to report that, really, there’s no inside joke: Beaver-Like Mammals is simply a mentality (the "I-look-for-furry-things-in-the-yard-and-wonder-whether-they-are-beavers" mentality) that you have to accept, then embrace. Plus, once you start seeing those furry things, you will see them everywhere, and that only makes life more pleasant. Yay! Furry things!
The only potential danger is that once you begin to wonder whether one furry thing is a beaver, you will begin—in extreme cases—to wonder whether every furry thing is a beaver. For example, the people who wrote in from India (yes, India) about a BLM sighting. The animal was actually either a squirrel or a chipmunk, the writers could not tell. I don’t know about anyone else, but I have never seen a squirrel (or a chipmunk for that matter) by the side of the road and asked myself, "Whoa, cool! Is that a beaver?" But then again, perhaps I am just abnormally acquainted with the looks and behavior of Sciurus carolinensis.