Home Invasion, Part II

Read Part I here, if you haven't already.

The rabid squirrel scampered out our bedroom door, and Mr. Peevie continued to scream and dance around and hyperventilate, while I was paralyzed by incredulity. Finally, he came to his senses enough to run over to the door and slam it shut.

He leaned back against the door, panting. I'm pretty sure his heart-rate was in the 200s.

"There's a squirrel in our house," I said. Mr. Peevie started moving boxes of books in front of the door to barricade it shut.

"Mr. Peevie," I said calmly, "What the hell are you doing?"

"I'm barricading the door in case the squirrel comes back," he said.

"Mr. P., it's a squirrel, not a bear," I pointed out. "A squirrel can't open a door. Plus, why would he want to? He's more afraid of us than we are of him." Except in this case, I really wasn't sure that that was true.

He was all logical, in the phobic, insane sense of the word, pointing out that our bedroom door didn't really latch, and so all the squirrel would have to do would be to push on it, and it would open. By this time, he had about 80 pounds of books stacked in boxes against the door.

"Honey, honey," I soothed, "We're going to have to use the bathroom. Let's just get ready for bed." Besides, I refrained from adding, you've got enough books piled against the door to keep a mountain lion from getting in, let alone a two-pound rodent.

"Are you FREAKING KIDDING me? There is a SQUIRREL in our HOUSE, and I am NOT going to be able to SLEEP. We have to call someone." He was pacing, back and forth across the sherbet-green-it-was-there-when-we-bought-the-house carpet, stopping to check the secureness of his improvised blockade on every pass. I could tell we were going to need sedatives.

I'm not used to being the rational one in our relationship, but somehow I talked him down from his Ledge of Crazy and got him to agree that we'd call animal control in the morning.

"OK," he grudgingly agreed. "But I am not leaving this room until the squirrel is gone."

We scooted quickly to the bathroom and back, and Mr. Peevie barricaded the door once we were safely back in the bedroom. Eventually, and without quaaludes, he calmed down, and we went to sleep.

In the morning, as promised, I called animal control. As it turns out, Chicago's Animal Care and Control department will not remove a squirrel from your house--but I found a supplier of animal removal services and told them my upsetting tale of home invasion.

"Yeah, OK," the helpful company rep said, snapping her gum loudly, "We can have somebody there in about four hours. It'll run ya $75. Cash or check."

Four hours? "Four hours?" I said. "We're kind of trapped upstairs in our bedroom. Do you think you could get someone here a little sooner?"

Snap, snap, chew, chew, snap. "Yeah, OK, we can make it a rush job, but it'll cost you double. Djawanna?" The "rush" would get the squirrel out of our house in two hours instead of four. We snapped up the deal.

Being more courageous that Mr. Peevie, and willing to face the enemy, I cautiously walked down the stairs. Step by step, inch by inch--it was like I was in a Three Stooges sketch--"Niagara Falls! Slowly I turn..."--I made my way down the blue carpeted stairs.

Two steps from the bottom, I froze. There, watching me from the top of the curtains, perched the dastardly squirrel. "Ah-HAH!" I said, boldly. "There you are, my pretty!" I figured that as long as I knew where the squirrel was, I was cool; so I went about my business and the squirrel stayed put.

**Tune in tomorrow for the gripping conclusion to our serial drama, Home Invasion.