It’s official: Brits are pussies
I miss chipmunks. I did a lot of day-hiking around Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Connecticut, where the old stone farm walls are alive with the little chirping, fur-headed bastards. If you sit very still and make clucking noises, their curiosity gets the better of them and they’ll come out to see what you’re up to.
Not because clucking noises make sense to chipmunks; they come out to see what the hell is the matter with you, lady?
A woman in a shop today was telling us about an article she just read: a new and dangerous invasive species has been spotted in the UK. Yup. Chipmunks. Siberian chipmunks, bought as pets in France and escaped into the wild. They’re coming through the Channel Tunnel.
Now, I’ll give them this: chipmunks can carry Lyme and rabies, two diseases I have spent considerable energy trying not to get a dose of and was ever so grateful to get away from. So, okay, this isn’t good news news, even to a sentimental, rat-lovin’ weasel. But
“They look cuddly and harmless, and this makes them particularly dangerous. If startled, they can give a nasty nip, especially when cornered.”
??? I mean, c’mon. Chipmunks.
She gave me the newspaper, which goes onto say that the latest sighting was on the Isle of Sheppey (East of London). A chipmunk got into somebody’s kitchen and was chowing down on the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes (yes, they specified).
And the family’s pets were left traumatised by the invader — which caused the latest in a series of ‘chipmunk alerts’ [chipmunk alerts!] issued after fears that a species from Siberia which carries diseases had reached these shores.
The creature left Bryan and Susan’s two cats shaking — and they and the family’s dog now can’t go into the garden.
Mum-of-four Susan, 44, from Minster, said: “It was terrifying. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Honestly! I know two pussycats and a certain beautiful fairy princess who need to cowboy up a little…
Posted: August 12th, 2009 under animals, britain.
Comments: 18
Comments
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: August 12, 2009, 7:33 pm
Jeepers. H. Crackers. These people used to have an empire that spanned across the whole globe. What the hell happened?
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: August 12, 2009, 7:55 pm
We were invaded by A Weasel.
Comment from Enas Yorl
Time: August 12, 2009, 8:29 pm
The Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie bomber is going to be let go next week. On “compassionate” grounds since he has prostate cancer. Awwww! Isn’t that sweet? Listen to one of the surviving relative’s response at the link. Apalling.
Comment from Joan of Argghh!
Time: August 12, 2009, 8:43 pm
A girl I work with has had a squirrel for a pet for 3 years. It runs free in her home (she lives with mom, still) and it chews on everything –every piece of furniture and wood– while they coo and sigh over how cute it is when it throws up. It literally rules their lives and they are quite content to let it do so. I think they’re as daft as the Brits, but in a more disturbing way.
Comment from Anonymous
Time: August 12, 2009, 9:20 pm
Comment from scubafreak
Time: August 13, 2009, 12:49 am
Hey, ya gotta be careful about those little guys.
http://lewwaters.files.wordpress.com/2009/05/army_squirrel.jpg
Comment from Scott Jacobs
Time: August 13, 2009, 3:26 am
What. The. Fuck.
When did the UK become God Damn France?
Comment from Uncle Badger
Time: August 13, 2009, 7:26 am
Before you lot start chucking tea in the harbours again, the vile Ali al-Megrahi is in prison in Scotland, which is currently pretending to be a more-or-less separate country (aka socialist republic).
I think most Englishmen would rather he had been suspended from a lamp-post by his testicles.
To be fair, most Scotts probably would too, but that just serve them right for voting in a pack of Marxist vermin.
Comment from Pupster
Time: August 13, 2009, 9:05 am
Well, can you really blame them?
RUN FOR YOUR LIVES!
Comment from Blast Hardcheese
Time: August 13, 2009, 9:06 am
Me, I hear ‘Siberian chipmunks’ and I think of Manuel’s…unique pet in Fawlty Towers.
“No, no, is Siberian Hamster!”
Comment from bad cat robot
Time: August 13, 2009, 9:35 am
My Swiss friend thought chipmunks only existed in cartoons. He thought they were imaginary.
Now, I have encountered some fairly burly mountain chipmunks in Rocky Mountain National Park, but all they wanted was chocolate. And they never bit us. Just danced on our knees trying to reach the chocolate bars we were eating. Lacking in couth? yes. Aggressive? Come on, these are *chipmunks* we are talking about.
Comment from JuliaM
Time: August 13, 2009, 1:20 pm
Chipmunks? She should see what they have to put up with in California…
If HE wants the Crunchy Nut Cornflakes, better let him have them…
Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: August 13, 2009, 3:46 pm
Honestly! I know two pussycats and a certain beautiful fairy princess who need to cowboy up a little…
Last time I got tole to “cowboy up” a little, I jes bin’ drug a quarter mile through a brush pile and a bobwar fence in three feet deep of Willamette Valley mud by a little bitty 900 lb heifer after my glove got stuck in the halter.
I ain’t sure ‘zactly how to relate that to a chipmunk. Hell, I cain’t even think of nuffin’ to do with a chipmunk fur, lessen you needed a purse for single Life-Saver® candy, so wouldn’t even see the point of stranglin’ one of the tiny bastids.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: August 13, 2009, 4:55 pm
Bobwar. Heh. That’s just how I’d spell what they called it when I was a lass.
Comment from EW1(SG)
Time: August 13, 2009, 5:07 pm
Heh, yer royal self. 😉 Last time I got drug through some bobwar I was still a wee lad.
Been a while since anybody tole me to cowboy up.
Comment from lauraw
Time: August 13, 2009, 7:40 pm
It terrified the cats? Around here, barn cats love catching chipmunks if they can manage it.
Just how big are these Siberian chipmunks? Is this like when Sylvester met the kangaroo that escaped from its shipping crate…?
Comment from Mrs. Peel
Time: August 13, 2009, 9:19 pm
Well, maybe the “fairy princess” is actually a first level wizard, and therefore has an excellent reason to be afraid.
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