South Berwick, Maine is a typical small New England town (pop. 7,220) just a stone’s throw from the New Hampshire border. At 97.5% white and solidly middle class, it sounds unexceptionally boring. In fact, the only thing that ever happens in South Berwick is a yearly “strawberry festival” held on its elementary school grounds. Highlights apparently include “shops, food, games and rides for children and trolley rides.”
*yawn*
Since virtually everyone else in the world completely ignores this dreadfully boring town, the squirrels have taken notice—and taken up residence. Indeed, South Berwick seems to be the ideal location for the enemy rodents to perfect their latest stealth technology: winter camouflage.
Yesterday, some residents caught a glimpse of the highly classified program in action:
[image: Karen Miller via WGME]
Rare white squirrel makes appearance in South Berwick
SOUTH BERWICK — Karen Miller in South Berwick found an unusual animal eating in her yard Tuesday.
Karen thought it was a rat at first, but eventually realized the animal was a white squirrel.
Her granddaughter, Kenzie, named the squirrel “Snowy.”
Snowy. Jeezus. (Like I said, booooooring.) The hapless Karen and Kenzie have no idea that its real name is probably “Agent W,” or something else straight out of James Bond. (They also have no idea how terribly and unjustly they have insulted rats.)
The implications of this Agent W sighting in South Berwick are only too obvious. Snow typically falls six months of the year there, providing ample opportunity to test out various methods of whitening the squirrels’ otherwise gray, brown or red coats. Yes, that’s right: squirrels can now unleash their insidious mayhem on snow-prone towns and cities around the globe with ease, and with little fear of detection.
Is anyone here surprised? I thought not.
Meanwhile, the same news source(!) reported the same day(!!!) on a man’s truly bizarre encounter with an unholy assembly of Sciuridae a mere 150 miles up the I-95 corridor in Bangor.
[image: Andrew Day via BDN]Four baby squirrels with tails tangled together rescued by Bangor men
BANGOR — When it comes to weird wildlife sightings, Andrew Day of Bangor now has one for the books — four baby squirrels tangled together by their tails, and they were in danger.
O.o
On Monday, Day was visiting his parents’ house in Bangor when he looked out the window and something caught his eye. At first, he thought the ball of fur tumbling across the street was a cat attacking an injured squirrel.
GOOD KITTY!
Worried about the wild animal,
Wait what.
he ran outside to find not one but four squirrels, and they appeared to be tied together by their tails.
Whoo-hoo! Squirrel stew for dinner tonight, honey!
With his phone, he took a short video of the remarkable sight, which he posted on YouTube today.
Here is the video, if you can even stomach a sight this grotesque. [CONTENT NOTE: writhing blob of disgusting evil squirrels.]
The video is only 28 seconds, lasting as long as it took for Day to slowly approach the entangled rodents. He then spotted a house cat nearby and shooed it off. “I have no idea whose cat it was,” Day said. “But it was a pretty stoked cat.”
You know, I am reeeeeally not feeling this Andrew Day d00d. Like, at all. But this cat? This cat is fucking awesome!
So Day and his dad called their local Animal Control (closed Sundays), Bangor Police (no help) and the area game warden (too far away). I presume any of these officials would have quickly put that squalling ball of perverse demonry out of its misery, rewarded the awesome cat with a nice treat and some good skritches, and then bopped Day and his dad right on their heads for good measure.
Above the four entangled squirrels, an adult squirrel — likely their mother — perched on a tree limb making loud sounds.
:o
This is the stuff of my nightmares.
“If you watch the video, you can hear her sort of screaming in the background,” Day said.
For the sake of all that is good and right in the world, DO NOT watch the video.
The d00ds were “worried the baby squirrels would hurt themselves,” instead of, you know, being worried the baby squirrels would shut down the entire New England power grid and eat their fucking house. They somehow used a rake to get them (it?) into a cardboard box, and took a closer look at the mass of tangled tails. “Intertwined with it was straw and twigs and there was some plastic,” Day said.
Day’s best guess is that the squirrels tails got tangled up while in the nest, and the debris in their tails was simply nest material. However, it’s hard to say what exactly happened.
No, no it is not. The filthy beasts are in training to deploy a sophisticated new tactical maneuver, and they are quite adept at repurposing items found in their immediate environment with MacGyver-like ingenuity. Just like Navy Seals.
“I got some scissors and I trimmed tail hair off the squirrels for about an hour and a half,” Day said. “It was quite the operation. I’m happy to report they were fine.”
This fucking d00d. Ugh.
When the game warden called back, the four squirrels were untangled and resting under a blanket in the box. The game warden instructed Day and his father to release the squirrels at the tree their mother was in. Free, the four squirrels scurried up the tree to be reunited with their mother.
And the little birds began to chirp, the violins swelled, and everyone lived happily ever after. OH WAIT NO.
Clearly, Andrew Day happened upon a rare instance of a squirrel team’s training exercise gone horribly awry. While we unfortunately have no current intel on what the squirrels might be planning, we can say with 100% certainty that whatever it is, it can’t be good. The damage one squirrel can cause is absolutely breathtaking in scope. Imagine four of them, acting in concert.
These two incidents happening in the same state at the same time is no coincidence, people. The squirrels are ramping up, and furthermore they seem to be feeling pretty good about their odds in this war: they are becoming more and more brazen by the day.
Be afraid.
And fergawdsake stay the fuck out of Maine for the foreseeable future.
Squirrel Team Four apparently concluded the exercise via successful arboreal exfil.
I cringe in fear awaiting the news of Squirrel Team Six invading the nesting sites of innocent homo sapiens.
Weaponizing their nests, no doubt.