Outwitting Squirrels
Space Cadet, 01/02/2001
A roar of steam marks their arrival
They open up the airship's doorway
Preparing for their bloody reprisal...
The bloodthirsty vengeful Squirrels of Norway.
One by one the squirrels march out
Plummeting to the ground below
Their parachutes open, they give a war shout
While sipping glasses of Red Bordeaux
Source:The Changing of the Squirrels
#2, author unknown, from a Geocities.com page that sadly no longer
exists.
In France, the incitement of hatred is illegal. I can only guess
that the French authorities have not come across the wealth of
anti-squirrel propaganda which is awash on the internet. There are
numerous hate sites and Yahoo! even hosts auctions selling squirrel
memorabilia.
Bill Adler Jr.'s site, OutwittingSquirrels.com,
begins the crusade against the fluffy-tailed rodents. Bill
logically asks, "If we can't outwit squirrels, which have brains
the size of peanuts, how can we expect to get an astronaut to
Mars?"
"Are we going to stand there and let squirrels run our lives?,"
he continues. "The answer must be no. And so, Outwitting Squirrels:
101 Cunning Stratagems to Reduce Dramatically the Egregious
Misappropriation of Seed From Your Birdfeeder by Squirrels was
born." Buy his manifesto, curiously priced at $9.56 on
Amazon.com (Average customer rating: four-and-a-half
stars).
The synopsis reads: "From spooker poles and Perrier bottles to
water bombs and cayenne pepper, Bill Adler, Jr., has tried every
conceivable method to rid his backyard of these fluffy gluttonous
rodents. Revised and even craftier than the first edition, which
sold over 100,000 copies..." This is followed by rave reviews from
The New York Times and Rosie O'Donnell, no less.
I think it's fair to say that Bill really does hate his
squirrels. But at ScarySquirrel.org, site
patriots hate the little critters even more. Note that Bill went
only as far as the cayenne pepper. At ScarySquirrel.org, they go
all the way. To exorcism. You can read over 50 "Mystical Squirrel
Sightings" on this site, such as Patriot Kim's story of being
knocked out by a squirrel and then seeing a vision of it while
unconscious. "I don't know what the squirrel was trying to tell
me," writes Patriot Kim, "but I'm sure it was some sort of threat
or terrible squirrel curse."
In answer to Patriot Kim's concerns, the anti-squirrel gurus
say: "Many skwerlhuggers believe that, someday, a nice squirrel
from Heaven will come, and these are the final days before the
Armaggedon. But as one Patriot suggested, if there are bushytails
in Heaven, it's because angels have to eat, too." Yikes.
There is some good news for "skwerls". The Squirrel Mansion of Andrew
Watts is a loving oasis set in the bloody battlefield that is
the anti-squirrel internet lobby. Andrew explains, "I live in
Deltona, Florida. I am 20 years old. I watch Star Trek and I love
those bushy-tailed nut-nibblers." He has written his account of a
parallel world where squirrels dominate humans. They've kidnapped a
chiropractor who bakes acorn muffins for them but killed most of
the others and they don't like the letter 'w'. Don't ask. If you
have nothing better to do, you can read one of the instalments on
Geocities (actually, the link has now died). Be warned: it's enough
to make the average skwerlhugger turn to his twelve-gauge and head
for the trees.
Anyway, I leave you with another little chunk of poetic charm
from The Changing of the Squirrels #2.
The squirrels attacked with spoon and forkconfetti
And spaghetti, strung 'round a stickfork
But the townsfolk were ready, for they LIKED spaghetti
And countered with a croon 'bout New York
The squirrels held their ears, it was worse than they'd
feared
This attack was a big dismal flop
Until up showed a monkey with cantaloupes in his ears
Valiantly waving a mop.
