Armed squirrels? That’s just nuts!

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 10/02/2021 (2072 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I had desperately hoped that I would not be forced to write another angry column about the global menace posed by squirrels, but it has become obvious that I was only deluding myself.

In recent years, despite the fact I have not yet received a major journalism award, I have written literally dozens of groundbreaking columns wherein I warn that extremist squirrels are clearly plotting the downfall of mankind.

I know, on the outside, squirrels are all fuzzy and cute and bushy-tailed, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that some of them will do anything to cast off the shackles of their human oppressors.

Their attacks are becoming more brazen every day. Which is why I was alarmed this week when I spotted a handful of news reports, most of which sported some variation of the following headline: “Toronto woman finds knife-wielding squirrel in backyard!”

Q: Doug, we realize you are famously anti-squirrel, but are you seriously trying to suggest that a woman in Toronto was confronted by a squirrel armed with a knife?

A: That is exactly what I am suggesting.

According to multiple online reports, including the New York Post, Andrea Diamond, who lives in the Rosedale area of Toronto, was gazing into her backyard early last month when she spotted the little guy sitting on her fence gnawing on a paring knife she had left near a tent set up outside her home for physical-distancing purposes.

As the furry fiend gnawed on the blade, Diamond grabbed a camera and began filming. “So apparently knife-wielding squirrels are a thing now,” she tweeted along with footage of the armed squirrel.

“He was just gnawing on it, happily,” she was quoted as saying. “Then he dropped it. And I thought, ‘That was it.’ But then he came back to keep gnawing on it. Maybe he was sharpening his teeth on it, I haven’t seen that before.”

Call me sensationalist if you must, but I am gravely concerned this knife-packing rodent is just the tip of an iceberg that, when flipped over, will reveal thousands of angry squirrels armed to the teeth and itching to seek revenge on innocent humans.

Last year, with no thought for my own safety, I wrote a column about a rogue squirrel that lives atop a towering evergreen in my backyard and, while I hurl empty curses into the sky, bombards me with a neverending supply of pine cones.

As regular readers already know, these evil little guys are out to get me because I have published dozens of crusading columns exposing the fact that squirrels pose a far greater threat to our power grid than human terrorists do.

Consider this: Terrorists have caused exactly zero power outages on this continent, while there have been 1,252 squirrel-related blackouts, according to Cyber Squirrel 1, an actual scientific website that tracks this sort of thing.

The website features an official-looking map chronicling blackouts around the world dating back to 1987, along with links to stories about the incidents. Along with 1,252 squirrel-related outages, it lists 639 caused by birds, 117 involving snakes, 115 where raccoons were the culprits, 13 featuring (wait for it) jellyfish, 12 caused by monkeys, and only three in which humans took the blame, including one involving a Hannah Montana balloon.

These attacks are becoming more sinister, because squirrels are now clearly targeting events that are of great emotional and symbolic importance to humans.

For instance, several news reports stated that hundreds of residents in Ashland, Ore., were left without power just before last Sunday’s Super Bowl game began when a “mischievous squirrel accessed electrical equipment, causing it to short.”

Mischievous squirrel? I suspect this suicidal rodent knew exactly what it was doing when it sacrificed itself in an effort to deny humans the ability to park themselves in front of their TV sets and enjoy the most important football game of the season.

Even more alarming were reports of another Kamikaze-style attack that was aimed at bringing democracy to its knees. In late October, in the run-up to the U.S. election, a rogue squirrel caused a power outage at the Douglas County Election Commission in Omaha as people waited for hours in line to cast their ballots, forcing voters to return the following day.

“I’m sorry to report, the squirrel didn’t pull through. RIP little squirrel,” the Omaha Public Power District shared via Twitter after the incident brought down computer and telephone systems for two hours.

The point to remember is that squirrels are willing to sacrifice themselves in a bid to inflict maximum damage on innocent people as they prepare to watch football games or cast ballots to uphold democracy.

The only government currently taking the squirrel threat seriously is the U.K., where they have launched a project to use oral contraceptives to control booming grey squirrel populations. The plan involves luring squirrels into feeding boxes with little pots containing hazelnut spread spiked with an oral contraceptive.

Even Prince Charles, famously pro-squirrel, has come out in favour of the contraceptive plan. Initially, I thought this plan was foolish because squirrels would have no way to slather the hazelnut spread on their toast.

And then the horrifying reality struck me — SOME OF THEM HAVE KNIVES!

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca