Thursday October 25th, 2018
I am a fan of Christmas Vacation, the movie. One of the highlights is the squirrel segment. Clark harvests a new Christmas tree from the neighbours yard and brings in a pesky squirrel. These folks have their issues and you might think something like this can’t happen at your house…
Last night I was having a pre-bedtime nap in my chair. Mike came down and woke me up asking “Do you have any nuts? Having just awoken I checked, everything seemed ok. He was rifling the cupboards “do you have any nuts”? Oh, I answered “Why” I probed? “There’s a squirrel in the house”. “Oh” I exclaimed in that drawn out “OOOOhhhhhhhhhh”.
We located our nuts and off to the third floor we went. I was pretty sure that a tennis racquet was the weapon of choice, but I remember from the movie, a coat and a hammer? Up into the lookout we went and sure enough there was a flying squirrel in the house. I seem to recall these bastards travel as a pair… Rocky and Bullwrinkle? I couldn’t imagine that Bullwrinkle could have made it this far into the house without arousing Ozy (our Australian Shepherd) (who slept through this entire event)(luckily).
Harrison, who was now awake wanted his Pop Pop, while his father located and evicted the offending varmint. There is a two step drop from the look-out (widows’ watch) to the third floor hall. I was holding Harrison when this demon leaped and flew from the lookout towards us. I slammed Harrison’s door and the varmint smacked and slid down the door (on the outside). He was now in the bathroom, I was thinking a swirly would be in his future.
Mike was leaving a trail of nuts from the bathroom, up a rocking chair to the open window in the lookout. There was a commotion followed by the wide and wild eyed Mike opening the door declaring the squirrel was gone. Harrison was unsure and was operating me like one of those huge star wars mechanical walking things. He managed to keep me steered putting me between him and the varmint.
Back to bed we go…
P.S. I have sleuthed the house and the point of entry seems to be an exhaust fan on the third floor bathroom. The little door on the exterior is stuck open. He got himself through the fan and C heard a muffled thud in the bathroom when he landed. The thud was singular and slight, so it is unlikely he was accompanied by Bullwrinkle…