SQUIRRELS WITH DIRTY MOUTHS

I just tossed an apple core in a trash can at the pool and the trash rustled and a squirrel hopped onto the edge and glared at me.  The fur around its mouth was darker, matted, and wet.  It was like a wino squirrel.  I was relieved when it wandered away.  A few minutes later I was sitting in a beach chair in the shade and reading when the tree above me shook and a squirrel fell to the ground, far more clumsily than squirrels usually descend from trees.  It looked at me angrily.  Its mouth looked dark, wet, and strange.  Then it ran away.  I wondered if it might be the same squirrel, but I was pretty sure this one had a stringier tail.  Then from the bushes I heard some of them barking at each other hysterically.  I started to be worried that they all had some disease.  I put my book away pretty soon and left.  On my way out, I heard a shuddering in the bushes beside the path and saw one of them hunched there, eating what looked like half a Fig Newton caked in dirt.  Its slimy mouth was coated with crumbs and it just kept munching as I walked by.  It didn't fear me at all.