They’ve got the power

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 24/09/2018 (2853 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I was sitting in a lawn chair in my back yard last week, innocently consuming an adult beverage under the shade of a towering pine tree, when suddenly it hit me.

It hit me smack on top of my pointy little head.

It was a pine cone.

If you have never been hit on the top of the head by a pine cone — and this one was roughly the size and shape of a standard hand grenade — you would be surprised to learn how much it stings.

“ARGH!” is what I grunted, before staring up into the tangle of limbs at the top of the tree.

Which is when a barrage of pine cones rained down from the highest branches, which I soon discovered were occupied by a squirrel with a bad attitude and a rocket-like pitching arm that would make Baseball Hall of Famer Nolan Ryan look like a minor leaguer.

As I looked up, this beady-eyed, bushy-tailed invader hurled pine cones down at me — “THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!” — with the sort of velocity required if you were trying to throw a marshmallow through a car wash.

“What does this (bad word) squirrel have against me?” I wondered aloud, shaking my fist at the furious, fast-flinging rodent, who seemed rather cocky as he sat in safety atop my back yard tree.

Why am I telling you this? I’ll tell you why I’m telling you this. (Yes, I know I’m taking a long time getting to the point, but it’s my column, so back off.) I’m telling you this because clearly this squirrel was merely the tip of a large, furry iceberg, which, when flipped over, would reveal a bunch of extremist squirrels plotting the downfall of mankind.

I know what you are thinking. You are thinking: “Seriously, Doug? One squirrel beans you with a pine cone, so you impugn the good name of millions of innocent squirrels who have never caused harm to anyone?”

Ha ha ha! Allow me to laugh my cruel little laugh, because you are — and this comes from a place of caring — an absolute idiot.

Let’s take a moment here to perspire heavily and rub our hands together in a nervous manner as we ponder some of the most recent examples of the burgeoning threat squirrels pose to global security.

Perhaps you will be laughing out of the other side of your mouth when you read this headline, which I spotted on top of an alarming story on Yorkregion.com: Squirrel in Newmarket knocks out power for 11,000 homes in Stouffville.

This is the sort of news report that forces us to ask some tough questions, such as: where in the (bad word) world are Newmarket and Stoufville? Well, you will be interested to learn they are in Ontario, which is known to be a haven for squirrels bent on mayhem.

Squeaks the story: “How does one squirrel in Newmarket cause a seven-hour power outage in Stouffville? Easy — just damage a transformer station. The majority of Stouffville was without power for about seven hours the evening of Sept. 9 thanks to a pesky squirrel.

“According to a Hydro One spokesperson, there was an outage for more than 11,000 customers in the Stouffville area caused by a squirrel at the Armitage transformer station in Newmarket.”

Unless you are a complete fool, you will recognize this for what it is — the beginning of an organized campaign by squirrels to disrupt the power grid and leave their human oppressors freezing in the dark.

It gets worse. A story in the Montreal Gazette stated that a “curious squirrel” was behind a power failure that knocked out the computer system at the McGill University Health Centre in June.

Warns the story: “A Hydro-Québec worker found the unfortunate rodent dead in the McGill University Health Centre’s circuit breaker box on de Maisonneuve Boulevard. The squirrel touched two wires at the same time and was electrocuted.”

Think about that, if you will. It appears squirrels are so bent on revenge they are willing to sacrifice their own lives in kamikaze-style assaults aimed at leaving us in the dark.

Think Friendly Manitoba is immune from squirrel-related mayhem? Well, think again, because a squirrel was the cause of a blackout affecting 3,000 residents of the Maples in June.

Here’s what CBC reported at the time: “Manitoba Hydro crews were busy working to restore power to more than 12,000 customers Friday after storms — and a lone squirrel — knocked power out in Winnipeg and parts of the south of the province.

“About 3,000 customers in Winnipeg were without power in the morning after a squirrel snuck into a substation in the Maples and caused a short in the neighbourhood, said Hydro spokesperson Scott Powell.”

For those of you who still refuse to believe, we urge you to check out Cyber Squirrel 1, a website featuring a database of incidents wherein squirrels and similar critters have knocked out the power grid.

The meticulously maintained website features an official-looking map chronicling blackouts around the world dating back to 1987, along with links to stories about the incidents.

For the record, it lists 1,213 squirrel-related outages, 629 caused by birds, 116 involving snakes, 110 where raccoons were the culprits, 13 featuring (wait for it) jellyfish and only three in which humans took the blame, including one involving a “Hannah Montana” balloon.

What does this mean? I’ll tell you what it means. (Sorry!) It means squirrels pose a far greater threat to our power grid than human terrorists do.

Sure, they are incredibly cute, but, sadly, we are now in a full-fledged war with a bunch of furry varmints. Worst of all, the squirrels are winning! To think anything else would be (wait for it) nuts.

doug.speirs@freepress.mb.ca