National Squirrel Day

Did you know that January 21st is National Squirrel Day? Me neither. At least until last week. Just in case you had a rough day, read ahead to feel a whole lot better about yourself. Compared to me, you are amazing. My hubby had to go out of town for work. I was keeping the home fires burning with our three kiddos. Not so bad. Morning one of my endeavor, my oldest runs upstairs to tell me she is pretty sure some animal just fell through the chimney into the fireplace. WHAT?????????????????????? If you know my at all you are aware of my DEEP fear of birds. Lovely creatures. But they terrify me. Mostly because they seem to always fly into my hair. So I am thinking some nasty bird is now trapped in my fireplace, ready to sprint out (into my hair) at any given moment. It could have bird flu or SARS or anyone of those gross bird illnesses you hear about. Dramatic much? The other option is a squirrel. Less scary to me than a bird, but faster, sneakier and more hyper. I cautiously poke the fireplace screen, hoping against hope that my daughter was wrong and that it was just the wind. Fail! As soon as I touched the metal slidey thing (as you can see I am well versed in fireplace part terminology), there is confirmed movement. Craptastic. So I corrale all the little people into a bedroom upstairs and call in reinforcements. I would love to write this from the perspective of a Mom Hero who single-handedly captured the squirrel, thus saving her family from potential rabies, and also kindly releasing said squirrel back into its natural habitat. Peace love recycle and all that. However the truth is a bit less glamorous. I has my poor neighbor hunt down that squirrel like a pair of Torri Burch shoes 75% off. What did I do? Cowered on the stairs almost sucking my thumb. The thought of a rodent being in my house was not THAT big of a deal. The thought of a rodent jumping out at me from any location at any moment...B-I-G deal. It camped out in the fireplace while we were home making noise, so we set a Have a Heart trap with some peanut butter apple slices and got out of dodge. When we got back from our errands, a lamp was knocked off the console table, a red apple on the kitchen counter looked like someone exploded it with a bottle rocket, and the trap was empty. As in completely empty. No apple slices. Hmmmmmm. Apparently, just like you need to close your flue after you use the fireplace, you also need to make sure the trap is set. Oops! So we go back outside for round two. Squirrel will not come out if he knows we are even on the front porch. I cannot say that I blame him. We are a rowdy bunch. Oh, I should also mention that I had invited a few of my girlfriends over to hangout that night. At this point I am debating whether I need to tell them that a squirrel may or may not jump on their face during our evening together. I go about my evening, vacuuming up squirrel poo and picking up all the things he got into while partying in my den. Imagine my surprise when I pull the trashcan out to empty the Dyson and OMG there is my friend Squirrel. RIGHT THERE. Words came out if my mouth I am not proud of, but I was freaking out. The kids were in another room, thankfully. They would have gotten in big trouble for repeating my squirrel discovery language. Neighbor comes back over, makes a pathway with furniture, umbrellas, and a bucket and scares the squirrel out of the cabinet and into the trap. Where was I? Yep, halfway up the stairs. Good to know I can depend on myself in a time of parenting crisis. If you were curious, squirrels can have awesome diarrhea when they are trapped and scared. That was fun to clean up, too. But at least the drama was over. My neighbor earned his Good Samaritan badge, I was rodent free, and my friends could safely chat without fear of rabid animals lurking near. I am now an obsessive flue checker. Happy National Squirrel Day folks!