The weird magic of the Internet in one 13-second squirrel video

For the last couple of years, my wife has made a habit of feeding the local squirrel and bird population from our deck.

For the squirrels in particular, she keeps a large stock of peanuts on hand to toss out there any time one of our fuzzy-tailed friends comes to the back door hoping for a handout.

(That's exactly what they do, by the way. They boldly climb onto the deck and come right up to our door. I don't know how well they can see us on the other side of the glass, but they can at least detect movement in the kitchen, which they take as a sign that a generous human is coming to give them a snack.)

At some point Terry also purchased a little red chair with a screw protruding from the seat. The idea is to fasten a corn cob onto the screw so that your squirrel friends can eat from it.

That's what you're seeing in the video above. One recent Saturday, I walked into the kitchen and saw a squirrel on the deck happily wolfing down a breakfast of hardened corn. I whipped out my phone, shot that clip and posted it on Facebook for friends and family to enjoy,

The next thing I knew, I was a minor social media influencer in India.

I don't know how it happened, but that video (which was posted publicly for anyone to come across) caught on with a group of folks from India. As I write this, it has in excess of 900 Facebook "likes," more than three-quarters of which are from people with decidedly Indian names whose bios suggest they live on the subcontinent.

Also at press time, the video had nearly 5,000 views, a significant chunk of which presumably came from my new Indian friends.

On the grand scale of the Internet, 900+ likes and 5,000 views are as nothing. They barely constitute a blip on the cyberspace radar.

But when you consider that I posted this innocuous little video on a whim, with no other intention than to share a smile and an "awwwww, he's so cute!" with my Facebook pals – only maybe two dozen of whom regularly interact with my content – this feels remarkable.

I don't know any of the folks from India who liked, shared and watched the video, nor do I know any of the Indian names who are suddenly "following" me on Facebook as a content creator.

For all of the not-so-good it creates, the Internet does a wonderful job connecting people who otherwise would never know each other. My short "Squirrel Breakfast" clip is a quirky little case study in that.

Which I think is just wonderful.

And so, for the record, does the squirrel who stars in the video. I asked him.

The barrage of critters on our back deck

One of our cats' current favorite pastimes is to sit near the door to our deck and stare at the animals who visit there.

And when I say "animals," I really mean squirrels and birds. Other than the very, very occasional raccoon at night, those are the only varmints who regularly come calling.

They do this because we offer them food. As I've mentioned before, my wife has a tiny squirrel picnic table on the deck that she regularly outfits with corn cobs. Word has spread quickly among the local squirrel community that there is tasty free corn to be had at this location, so every day we get several fluffy-tailed visitors.

Terry put a plastic bird feeder on the garage window that looks out onto the deck, so we also get a steady influx of wrens, sparrows, and other small winged creatures I can't identify.

All of which puts the cats into a frenzy.

Well, not a "frenzy" so much as a state of high alert. Our fluffy cat Molly, in particular, has taken it upon herself to spend hours each day observing the comings and goings of our woodland friends. She can barely contain her rage over their insolence and would like nothing more than to get outside and personally maim each and every one of them.

The other cats are curious but nowhere near as angry as Molly, who sits on an office chair placed there by Jared so that her long lonely hours of guard duty will at least be comfortable.

My favorite times are when the squirrels, who have come to realize we mean them no harm at all, walk right up to the deck door within inches of Molly's face and stare at her through the glass. She gets so worked up she starts making strange clicking noises and vows to rain eternal hellfire on the squirrel and each of his/her descendants.

I think she needs some sort of anger management training.

In her defense, squirrels really can be evil. My daughter Elissa recently had a squirrel get into her chicken wire-protected garden and wreak havoc on the plants there before he finally figured out how to escape.

This does not deter me from wanting a squirrel as a pet, but I'll admit they may not be the innocent, lovable little fuzzballs I've always assumed they were.

Our cats Fred and George are getting old. I hate going through this again.

Fred and George (actually, from left to right, George and Fred) not long after we got them in 2007

In addition to having five children, Terry and I also have five cats.

I have written about them before. There are enough of them that it's rare to be in a room of our house without at least one cat joining you, if not more.

Terry bought a tiny picnic table for squirrels (that's a 100% true sentence) to which she attaches ears of corn for our backyard squirrels to eat. When one of them comes up on the deck to partake of this corn, some or all of our cats will congregate at the back door to stare at it intently.

The only one who seems like he could take or leave the activity of squirrel watching is Fred. Fred and George are our white twin brother cats, and they will turn 14 this May.

The way I describe them these days is that they are both, in their own ways, starting to look bedraggled. That's a strong word in general, and it's a very apt one for Fred and George.

As I've mentioned, Fred chose me as his person some years ago. For most of the past decade and a half, he has slept beside me at night. He comes into the bathroom when I'm taking a shower, and he will start purring when I come near him, even before I actually pet him.

A quick Google search suggests that the average indoor cat lives 13 to 17 years. We are now within that window of time for Fred and George, and I'm seeing signs of decline in both.

Fred walks more gingerly down the basement steps than he used to. He has always had a bad habit of licking himself raw in certain places, but now he has prominent bald patches on both his head and his back.

The other morning I went down to the basement for my daily litter box maintenance and found Fred peeing on the floor right next to the litter box. I was not pleased.

There are other things, but suffice it to say that our two oldest cats are a lot closer to the end of the line than the beginning of it.

In some ways that's OK. It's just the way of things. But I hate this process. We take care of them the best we know how, but this will all inevitably end in a sad moment at the vet's office. I hope that moment is still several years away for Fred and George, but it does cross my mind more often these days.

Pet owners know what I'm talking about. When they're such a big part of your life, losing them hurts far more than you would think. It also makes me reluctant to get more pets in the future, but we'll cross that particular bridge when we come upon it.

For now, I'm going to go pet Fred and listen to his abnormally loud purr. It's the least I can do for an old friend.