The Great Squirrel Attack of '04
It's 2 a.m. Finishing one of my favorite movies. Whole family recites the dialogue as or just before it unfolds. Would, does drive anyone else crazy. We've gone through the classic lines. "'This is our daughter Dottie, this is our other daughter, Dottie's sister.' Should of had you and bought a dog." Thoughts on second children. "Mitch Swailey is one step up from a pig." "But an important step." The evolution of men. "Ever heard of Walter Harvey? He makes the candy bars." "Yeah, we feed 'em to the cows when they're constipated." Cracked me up for twelve years. "You know something mister, you're not nice." "See the grass cow girls, don't eat it." Retorts. "There's no crying in baseball!" "Did anyone ever tell you you look like a penis with a hat on?" Jimmy shouts, a lot. "Of course it's hard. If it wasn't hard everyone would do it. The hard's what makes it great." My firmest belief instilled from age seven. The music swells. Dottie tells Kit that you just wanted it more than I did. In the darkness, there's a scratching sound by a guitar stand. "Squirrel" screams Mom. "Kim, wake up! Feet off the ground, on the couch everyone." She jostles Jesse, the angelic sleeper. He rubs his head and wakens to the excitement. The movie pauses. The program, attack of the killer squirrel, interrupts. Our evening's entertainment. Our great country drama.
Started after dinner when Dad spotted something behind the glass grate on the hearth. "There's a rodent in the fireplace," he remarked to me. Lifted head from Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume Two. Jesse's flashlight glinted off two terrified eyes on a bushy tail. A baby squirrel, aww. I returned to the book. Everyone else came to make a distracting commotion. All had own theories on how it got in there in the first place and ideas now what to do with it. An alien in a squirrel suit, Brother jested. Jesse waved a baseball bat. Dad reminisced on traps he'd built one summer in science camp. Our humane dinner guests crooned and wanted to give it food, water. Mom murderously eyed the pokers. Finally, the final solution was agreed on. Dad converted a minnow trap into a squirrel catching device complete with peanut bait. Women and children were herded upstairs. Doors firmly shut. Wearing garden gloves for safety, Dad did delicate operation of opening door, dropping trap in and barricading fireplace shut. The wait began. Tension dropped as the squirrel sat and made no move for the nuts. If you saw the trap concoction you'd understand why no animal with a pea-sized brain or better would go in that thing.
So all's quiet on the home front until war or the enemy breaks out, erupts right in middle of a moment of my movie. Paranoia confines us to the couch, our island of safety. It could have rabies. We'd have to drive to the hospital. Shots in the stomach. Should have killed it when we had the chance, Mom grumbles. Dad roots around the house with a broom. The rest of us are crowded on the couch, held hostage in own home. We'll sleep in shifts. Or maybe the car. Could bite you in your bed while you're dreaming. Jesse and I dissolve in hysterics. The protective mother mutters more violence towards a small animal. If it touches her children. Besides, it's been eating and pooping on her sweaters. AND one tried to bite HER daughter in California. I try to explain the continent of difference between the coastal squirrel populations, but she's got an over-developed sense of vengeance. Especially if anything threatens her babies. Rabies is deadly. And there's no ole one-eye Atticus anywhere to shoot the mad animal. Potentially rabid baby animal. No foam, freaked, unlikely, slim to none chance it's rabid squirrel. But it's still loose somewhere in this house. So if you ask for me in the morning, and you find me a grave man, my mother was right, as usual.
Started after dinner when Dad spotted something behind the glass grate on the hearth. "There's a rodent in the fireplace," he remarked to me. Lifted head from Norton Anthology of American Literature, Volume Two. Jesse's flashlight glinted off two terrified eyes on a bushy tail. A baby squirrel, aww. I returned to the book. Everyone else came to make a distracting commotion. All had own theories on how it got in there in the first place and ideas now what to do with it. An alien in a squirrel suit, Brother jested. Jesse waved a baseball bat. Dad reminisced on traps he'd built one summer in science camp. Our humane dinner guests crooned and wanted to give it food, water. Mom murderously eyed the pokers. Finally, the final solution was agreed on. Dad converted a minnow trap into a squirrel catching device complete with peanut bait. Women and children were herded upstairs. Doors firmly shut. Wearing garden gloves for safety, Dad did delicate operation of opening door, dropping trap in and barricading fireplace shut. The wait began. Tension dropped as the squirrel sat and made no move for the nuts. If you saw the trap concoction you'd understand why no animal with a pea-sized brain or better would go in that thing.
So all's quiet on the home front until war or the enemy breaks out, erupts right in middle of a moment of my movie. Paranoia confines us to the couch, our island of safety. It could have rabies. We'd have to drive to the hospital. Shots in the stomach. Should have killed it when we had the chance, Mom grumbles. Dad roots around the house with a broom. The rest of us are crowded on the couch, held hostage in own home. We'll sleep in shifts. Or maybe the car. Could bite you in your bed while you're dreaming. Jesse and I dissolve in hysterics. The protective mother mutters more violence towards a small animal. If it touches her children. Besides, it's been eating and pooping on her sweaters. AND one tried to bite HER daughter in California. I try to explain the continent of difference between the coastal squirrel populations, but she's got an over-developed sense of vengeance. Especially if anything threatens her babies. Rabies is deadly. And there's no ole one-eye Atticus anywhere to shoot the mad animal. Potentially rabid baby animal. No foam, freaked, unlikely, slim to none chance it's rabid squirrel. But it's still loose somewhere in this house. So if you ask for me in the morning, and you find me a grave man, my mother was right, as usual.
