Jan 3, 2022 3 min read

I don’t like to do wrap-up columns about what big names left us or what events were the hallmarks of the year just past. I figure that you’ve had enough of 2021. I could make a bunch of highly improbable “predictions” for the coming year, but we all know that improbability is highly probable these days. So I’ll tell you about a couple of news stories you might have missed in the frenzy of the holidays.

Let’s start with one from “Newsweek”:

• Bloodthirsty, ‘Psycho’ Squirrel Attacks 18 in Small Town Christmas Rampage

“A Welsh town is being held in the grip of fear by a most unusual source, a grey squirrel that is attacking residents. ‘Wales Online’ reported that the serial squirrel has indiscriminately attacked pensioners, pets, and children, jumping at people taking out the garbage, and been chasing after people down streets as they flee.”

Nicknamed after a vicious character in the 1984 movie, “Gremlins,” “Stripe” reportedly had been a “frequent and friendly visitor” to the garden of Buckley resident Corinne Reynolds. But Stripe went rogue and began literally biting the hands that fed him. She humanely trapped Stripe, who then was put down by veterinarians because 2019 legislation in Wales makes it illegal to release captured grey squirrels – a non-native species – back into the wild.

This story surely was not funny to those victimized by Stripe, but it’s hard not to envision protesters outside the veterinarian’s office holding handmade “FREE STRIPE!” signs or those bitten refusing to take the rabies vaccine because it might contain microchips.

Also of a humorous bent was the fact that Yahoo.com ran the story of Stripe’s rampage under the heading “Sports.”

• Just to prove that Wales isn’t the only country playing host to, um, nutty squirrels, here’s a tidbit, um, squirreled away by the Associated Press in Minnesota:

“A troop of fat, hungry squirrels has put the kibosh on a downtown St. Paul park’s holiday lights display. Friends of Mears Park had to forego the usual display this year because squirrels chewed through the lights’ wires last year and the vendor refused to put up with the headache and cost again (of replacement) this year.”

Seems the wires were coated with polylactic acid, a derivative of corn sugar, apparently an appealing appetizer for squirrels – and, rumor has it, the “secret sauce” used by Burger King. The friends group replaced the sparkly lights with green landscape bulbs that shine up through the tree branches along with a projector beaming kaleidoscopic snowflakes.

“We have a mass of squirrels that live there because people feed them, and they’re the fattest squirrels you’ve ever seen,” one Friends of Mears Park volunteer told the “Pioneer Press.”

Representatives of the Proud Squirrels Militia could not be reached for comment.