Sunday, November 29, 2009

This creature was stirring

There I was, Friday morning, happily puttering whilst the hubby and daughter slept off their early morning trip to Kohl's, when I heard a strange scratching noise in an otherwise quiet house. I thought one of the cats had gotten trapped in a bedroom someone closed the door of - it happens sometimes. As I crossed the living room to check, I glanced over at the fireplace and what to my extremely wondering eyes should appear, inside the fireplace (thankfully there was no fire going), but one of our thousands of neighborhood squirrels! And he was scratching and pushing on the glass fireplace door, trying to get out - I mean, IN!

Panic ensued between woman and squirrel. I roused my husband from what he thought was going to be his long winter's nap and dragged him to the living room to rescue me. Do you ever have one of those times when you're husband says something extremely, well, male, and you just have to bite your lip really hard? Husband says, "Take the cats in the bedroom and close the door and I'll open the front door, then, open the fireplace and the squirrel will just run outside." Well, sure, I think, that will work - if the squirrel has been in our house before and knows how to get from the living room to the front door, and if the squirrel intended to fall down the chimney all along, calmly thinking, "Okay, plan B if I can't get back up the chimney is to just run out the front door when the guy who lives here lets me out." Hubby read the look on my face and said, "I know, I'll call the chimney sweep. Get me something heavy to lean against the glass doors until he gets here."

A couple of hours later, my daughter woke up and came out of her room to see a sooty man with a top hat carrying a squirrel in a towel through our house. And, we now have a re-secured cap at the top of our chimney - which had been installed upside down, according to the sweep.

The dazed squirrel decamped, exclaiming, "Happy Day-after-Thanksgiving to all and to all, a good afternoon." Or something like that, surely.

1 comment:

ooglebloops said...

Too funny!! We have had birds fall into the fireplace, from checking out a not too secure chimney cap!!One year, I found my two cats, staring thru the fireplace screen at a not too happy pigeon!!!All were captured (by me) and released, never to return to that chimney again!!!I make my husband check and make sure the chimney caps are on tight!!!