I Hate Squirrels

I was stumbling home late one night from the homeless shelter, where I teach blind orphans to sing church hymns while sponge-bathing the elderly, when I heard some strange noises. It sounded like eating, but with a rabid ferocity rivaled only by my stoner roommate with a bag of Fritos. It was dark all around me and I slowly walked forward, the horrible sounds drawing nearer. I looked down at my feet and saw what appeared to be the half-devoured remains of a human figure, a transient I think. His legs were still intact, but above the waist he was almost completely gone and was covered with little brown creatures, chirping loudly. These little demons eagerly pecked away at the flesh of the unfortunate man with a venomous, mungry ferociousness. I stepped back to vomit as they ravenously devoured the corpse, chirping alternately in squeals of evil delight and calling other little buddies to join in the feast that created a symphony of unfathomable evil that could only be the soundtrack to the ninth circle of hell. The cadre of chirps, slurps and chomps was over in mere seconds, with the once bloated corpse completely gone, replaced with seven or eight small foot bones and a few scraps of paper that read “world’s,” “funniest,” and “joke book.”

It was a sight I will not soon forget, nor have therapy or Paxil helped much. I still get nightmares. People ask me if my story is true and if rats can be that ravenous. Of course, I say, my story is true. But those weren’t rats, my friend. Those were squirrels.

And then they laugh at me. Squirrels are cute little creatures, everybody says – vegetarians, amiable, furry. Not quite. If you can manage to locate a sedate one, find a squirrel and stare into its strange, beady eyes. First, you’ll notice that they’re way too big for their freakish, oblong heads. Next, you’ll likely be distracted by the hypnotic swaying of their poofy, outward-spreading tails. Then, realizing poison has been spit into your face while you let your guard down (see below), you look back into the eyes of cute little Skippy or Sammy or Slappy or whatever you want to call him and for the first time you will notice a darkness and despair seen nowhere else in the natural or spectral world.

This cold blackness is so engulfing it fills you with such stifling and intense depression that the thought of being happy again does not even enter your mind as a possibility. This is how consuming the pure, seething evil is within the eyes of a squirrel. Such evil was written about extensively by both Nietzsche and Dylan Thomas, though neither could accurately approximate this blackness and profound sorrow. And neither hugs nor drink can ever make the memory go away.

After my little incident, the first thing I noticed about the squirrels on campus was that they were extremely comfortable with people. I attributed this to the symbiotic relationship of high populations of people and rodents, along with the great deal of junk food garbage lying around. But don’t squirrels generally run away when human beings get too close, or are at least a little skittish and quake constantly? So, then, why not here?

Well, regular squirrels are afraid of people because we are bigger and stronger. UO squirrels are a little different: they have no need for fear because they are a specially mutated race of squirrels with sick, disgusting and powerful weapons at their disposal. They don’t need to run away from people because they are more powerful and destructive than humans. Like that one dinosaur who sprayed the guy from Seinfeld in Jurassic Park, squirrels are equipped with packets of venom behind their ears with which they can spray a victim, rendering them more blind and crippled in a few seconds than 30 years of diabetes could accomplish. UO squirrels also are able to squeal at high pitches and high volumes for several minutes at a time, causing the explosion of eardrums to any living creature within a three-mile radius. Very, very bloody, really.

With such a violent menace on campus, you would think DPS or the administration would step in and curb such a hysterical threat. Well, that would be the case if some of these demented squirrels had not dressed themselves up in real pretty dresses and suits, educated themselves and received government grants which have helped them manipulate, hypnotize and poison their way into the upper echelon of University command. Some suspected poison squirrels within the ranks of the University include DPS chief Tom Fitzpatrick, vice-president Dan Williams, Emerald reporter Lisa Toth, the “free God news guy,” everyone in the Honors College, Carson cafeteria manager Cindy Lund and journalism professor Carl Bybee.

I’m just mad that because of their venom and clout, squirrels get to run all over this University doing whatever they please. I mean they are literally everywhere. Campus is littered with them, both live and dead. I hear them rustling in bushes; running up trees; running down trees; running up to me and pecking my shoe looking for free food or another handout of government cheese. I see them constantly chase each other in ways I am not sure are playful, sexual or violent. Mostly I hate how they are constantly gnawing in a circular pattern on little nuts and seeds — little nuts and seeds that they didn’t paid for. And guess who ends up footing the bill for these bucktoothed loafers? Mr. and Mrs. American Taxpayer, that’s who.

But these things breed faster than Mormons on fertility drugs. Their spread is rampant and soon the greens of courtyards and red bricks of learning halls will soon be a thick mass of matted brown and gray squirrel pelts. Something has got to be done to thin the herd. And yes, we’ve got to kill them. They may appear to be cute, fuzzy and harmless, but in actuality they are festering little vermin crawling with disease that sap you into giving them a peanut because of their cute widdle curly tails and big dopey eyes. Don’t give in.

Instead, I have two ideas for how to rid campus of these squirrels, the biggest tumor on our academic society next to the Greek system. Idea number one: sportsmen and entrepreneurs in Mexico have for years been training chickens to become masterful cockfighters. If these guys can turn stupid, pale, weak little chickens into scrappy fighting machines, then we can certainly do the same up here with squirrels. We can construct a little squirrel-cockfight ring in the quad between Condon and Chapman, pass out some betting forms and watch those little bastards peck and scratch each other until they’re lying their in a bloody mess of fur, bones and filbert shells. This is win-win: first, squirrels die, and second, massive financial windfall via legalized gambling.

My second plan could work in conjunction with the first. Those squirrels that live would be re-released back into the wilds of campus. They would be a given a five-minute head start before I and the other members of the Oregon Game Society begin stalking them into the night, shotguns in tow, orange vests on our backs. There is nothing more thrilling or masculine than killing a once noble creature and what an amazing rush it is to look a strong beast like a squirrel squarely in the eye before squeezing the trigger once and unloading a slug into its firm, meaty flesh. That night, the kids look admiringly at you as you carve the roasted squirrel and put a slice on each of their plates as the freshly-mounted head of the squirrel looks in from the den, now firmly placed as a trophy head alongside many, many other of its fallen, but deservedly dead-squirrel brethren. Now that’s America and colleges have a responsibility to keep their grounds free of pests and students adequately trained in the survival arts.

Cockfighting or hunting, we’ve got to get rid of them some way. In the meantime, whenever one of these vicious little succubi make their presence known, raccoons quiver, nutria cower and Jeremy Lang cries like a little girl who lost her favorite dolly. Fear the squirrels no more, for they can smell your fear and it is then that they are hungriest.