Chapter 5 No.5

The five stages of the Squirrel Attack Frenzy Sequence (SAFS) are as follows:

1. Locate a Violation of the Squirrel Narrative.

2. Point and Squeak.

3. Isolate and Swarm.

4. Reject and Transform.

5. Press for Surrender.

5. Throw Hazelnuts.

6. Show Tunes.

7. Squirrel Victory Parade (yeah that SOUNDS cute but it isn't so cute when they are carrying Timothy the Talking Cat effigies with tiny little knives sticking in them)

The rest of this guide consists of THE CORRECT way to respond to an Squirrel Attack once it has been identified, ideally at the earliest stage possible, or even before that. The Incorrect way is, as I discovered to find yourself in an extended verbal exchange with the squirrels.

Do not do this:

"Hi squirrels"

"OMG that thing is talking to us."

"Can I be your friend?"

"OMG what is that thing? Is it a cat or the distended corpse of a pug-dog run over by a threshing machine?"

"Why are you guys so mean?"

"Why are you so incapable of climbing trees?"

"I can too climb trees" [attempts and fails to climb a tree]

"OH MY GREAT-UNCLE NUTKINS look at that thing try to climb."

"I could climb but I'm wearing this machine gun."

"ooooh the little kitty-cat has a gun. The little-kitty cat is SOOO scary."

"Just you wait! One day I'll edit a best selling anthology of military science-fiction and then you'll be sorry!"

"yeah, whatever. Go an be an apex predator somewhere else cat-boy."

Please note that the eight stages of response do not correspond directly to the five stages of the SAFS (Squirrel Attack Frenzy Sequence).

1. Rely on the Three Rs: RECOGNISE that they are squirrels. RELY on the three Rs. REMAIN calm. REALISE people are easily duped by squirrels because of their cute little tiny paws and bushy tails.

The first thing to do when attacked by Squirrels is to recognise that you are under Squirrel attack, remember the three R's, remain calm, and realise that no one else cares. You need to Understand that the attack is happening, Accept that is happening, and Refrain from the temptation to try to make it not be thing that is happening because it is happening, oh boy is it happening. Remember the three R's stand for UndeRstand, Accept, and Refrain and Do not panic!

Don't go running to others for help or sympathy or some kind of squirrel replant because there is no such thing as squirrel repellant (believe me I tried to buy some in numerous stores and you just can't buy it), don't try to convince everyone around you how outrageous or unfair the squirrels are because people just think they are cute little creatures.

They don't care. They really don't. Think about how little you cared when someone else was previously being attacked by squirrels and how little you did to support them, let alone take action to stop them or to cut down the trees where the nasty little tree rats congregate..

That's exactly how much your housemates and owner and the passing postal worker care about you being attacked, and exactly how little effort they will take despite the squirrels saying hurtful things about you right in front of everybody. "Timothy, that is just non-verbal squeaking noises, " they will say in a condescending tone, like they can't hear EXACTLY what this vicious rodents are saying in PLAIN english.

The truth is that it doesn't matter WHY squirrels are attacking you. The only thing that matters is

Understanding that you are under attack RIGHT NOW and no one else is going to do anything about it.

2. Don't try to reason with squirrels.

The second thing is to recognise that there is no way you are going to be able to reason your way out of the situation when it comes to squirrels.

Most people who come under Squirrel attack have causality backwards. This may be due to ancient astronauts meddling with ley lines, improper attempts to control their breathing so as to attune their senses to the Earth's magnetic field, or post-doc students messing with the setting on the Large Hadron Collider. We can never really be sure but it is important to keep an open mind. The key thing is that because of the temporary violation of causality (in terms both of the 'modern' post-enlightenment misunderstandings of causality and in terms of the correct formulation by Saint Thomas Aquinas) the victim thinks the attack is taking place due to whatever it is that THEY did or ate or perhaps where they did a discrete poop that wasn't harming anybody. That is never EVER the case. The attack is taking place because of WHO YOU ARE and what you represent to the squirrels: you are an existential threat to the Squirrel Hegemonic Narrative (or SHN). In most cases, the squirrels attempting to discredit you, wanted you gone from the garden a long time ago, and they are simply using that whole poo incident as an excuse to get rid of you. And if the attack is more the result of squirrel nut-seeking rather than thought-policing, that's arguably EVEN worse, because if the motivation concerns them rather than you, there is absolutely nothing you can do about it, which there wasn't anyway but now even more so, like even LESS than nothing you can do about it. You get the picture.

The most important thing to accept here is the complete impossibility of compromise or even meaningful communication with squirrels or other similar tree creatures such as the North American Opossum or its distant Australasian relatives, the possum, koala or the New Guinea Tree Wallaby.

Squirrels NEVER engage in rational debate because they are NOT rational and they do not engage in honest discourse because they do not believe in OBJECTIVE truth. Truth to them is like a winter horde of nuts - they think it is where they put it and not where it has ended up because I accidentally unburied it while trying to hide my poop in a garden bed.