New Year's party animals

The squirrels of New York, it seems, went to bed on New Years Eve 2013 in a singles bar and woke up, New Years Day 2014, in a bordello.

Suddenly the treetops have become X-rated.

Suddenly you have to be 18 years of age -- or older -- for permission to feed the squirrels.

Suddenly the phrase, “Don’t touch my nuts,” takes on a whole new connotation.

It was barely a half-day into the new year and I’d personally interrupted more than a few, uh, baby boom production teams in executive session. And not a single one of these creative confabs was preceded by so much as a candlelit acorn supper or even a movie (“Nut Job,” perhaps? Why not? The animated film is being released later this month under the banner, “No Nuts, No Glory.”)

Anyone looking to get a piece of tail -- even bushytail -- more efficiently than a treetop tryst should perhaps consider online dating.

As if these libidinous visuals weren't enough to contend with, the nonstop squeaking and grunting is enough to make the likes of Larry Flynt blush and send Linda Lovelace to a convent (behind a door of any color).

Admittedly, this is an annual bacchanalian ritual as necessary to squirrels as perhaps the Times Square Ball Drop is to some humans. But even this kind of ball action might have rendered the late Guy Lombardo and Dick Clark speechless.

Remember, dearest rodents: Yes, this is a time of renewal. But the watchwords of the new year have usually been: NEW YEAR, NEW SQUIRREL.

Translated loosely, that means: BE a new squirrel. Not necessarily MAKE a new squirrel.