Those Darn Squirrels by Adam Rubin

I always thought squirrels were smarter than your average mammal. They are resourceful, sneaky, and creative. (Never mind that they occasionally forget where they've stashed their winter nuts or knock out the power on my block with ill-advised forays into transformers on the power poles.) They outsmart us humans on a regular basis. Of course, I subscribe to the belief that it's not that squirrels outsmart us, it's that we regularly underestimate the squirrels.

And who gets more frustrated by squirrels than bird feeder owners? It's a birdfeeder, not a squirrel feeder, yet there those grey little monsters are stealing the food. We try everything from hanging the feeders on wires to creating intricate obstacle courses. In Those Darn Squirrels, Old Man Fookwire - a man so grumpy he sneezes dust and hates pie and puppies - tries these very things to stop squirrels from stealing from his one love. His beloved birds.

Does it work? You be the judge:



So the squirrels, now fat and sassy on Old Man Fookwire's birdseed, decide to rub it in. They taunt him, as evidenced in this video taken in the old man's backyard:



Okay, they don't really taunt him. They do the opposite. The squirrels, now that the birds have all migrated south, notice Old Man Fookwire sadly eating his cottage cheese and pepper, missing his beloved birds. They devise a plan to pay back the grumpy old man for their plundered booty. (Squirrels are apparently empathetic too. Who knew?)