A little boy’s love of watching squirrels took a hilarious and slightly terrifying turn—thanks to his prank-loving grandparents.
In a TikTok video, 27-year-old Tiffanie Alleman shared the moment her parents decided to take her son’s obsession with squirrels to the next level. The clip shows her carrying her child up to the window, where her parents stand outside in giant, life-size squirrel masks. Instead of delight, the sight sends the little boy into tears.
Alleman spoke to Newsweek about the prank, and how her parents bring fun to her growing family.
“My son was obsessed with squirrels coming to the window until my parents became life-size squirrels and ruined that,” Alleman captioned the video. “[I] swear my parents get an adrenaline rush scaring my children.”
Alleman said the prank came from her son’s obsession with the furry creatures in their yard.
“My parents knew he loved visiting with the squirrels and would look outside for them daily, so they thought it’d be funny to pop up as life-size squirrels and get his reaction,” she said. “My son is obsessed with squirrels—they visit him at our bay window, and he feeds them peanuts. We would have roughly 30 squirrels in our yard at times.”
The TikTok video had viewers in stitches—and left them with plenty of theories about how the child might grow up with an irrational fear of squirrels.
“The fact that these are the grandparents is sending me into oblivion,” one person wrote.
“‘I don’t know where my phobia of squirrels comes from. All I know is I get a chill every time I see one…Like something just ain’t right about them,” another wrote, referring to Alleman’s son’s thoughts when he grows up.
Another user predicted an existential crisis in the future: “He’s gonna grow up wondering where the human-sized squirrels went and if there’s more out there.”
While the prank may have been overwhelming in the moment, Alleman reassured everyone that her son and his siblings have since recovered from their brief squirrel-induced trauma.
“Of course, my children were frightened at the size of the new squirrels they encountered,” she said. “But they have recovered and, in fact, wear the squirrel masks quite a bit and run around with them. They still love to squirrel watch!”
As for her parents, they have no regrets. “My parents always love a good prank and love to make others laugh, and I think they definitely achieved it,” Alleman said.
With a prank-loving family like this, it’s safe to say the next laugh—or mild childhood trauma—might be just around the corner.
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