Several things lead up to this. First, one night when I was out of town, Jay discovered that a bat had gotten in the house and by way of saying "howdy, roomie!" was flying formations over his head. He responded to this information as any big, strong, red blooded American male would; by screaming in a pitch higher than you'd have guessed and hiding under a blanket until said bat returned upstairs to where it seems to have taken up residence in my office. At least he immediately called me to tell me about it. After having a good, long laugh at his expense, I told him there was nothing I could do until I returned home and try not to piss off the bat and get a good night's sleep.
I am not afraid of bats, having already been bitten by one and gone through the rabies vaccination. While I don't relish the idea of being bitten by a wild animal ever again, at least rabies has no power over me. BTW; the rabies vaccine is not the awful, painful procedure it used to be. It does require several shots over the course of two weeks but they're just shots, which is a cheap way of acquiring the super power of imperviousness to rabies.
In addition to the bat, we discovered a hornet's nest in the eaves right over my office window. Jay has a slight allergy to bee stings but I don't. I fear bees even less than I fear bats. I certainly don't want to give the impression that I'm fearless. I'm not, by a long shot! I'd simply rather deal with bats and bees than phone calls or people. Hey, we all have our issues. I haven't been able to open Word on my computer for several weeks now and I know I should call Apple support or take it to the genius bar but I haven't been able to figure out how to do either of those things without talking to any actual people, so it hasn't gotten done, so there. Not fearless. My biggest fear, which dogs me constantly, is boredom. If there's anything on earth more boring than other people, I haven't figured out what it is. No offense.
Okay, that's not strictly true but it made me laugh to write, so I'm leaving it.
Where was I? Oh yeah, bees and bats in the belfry. When I got home, I searched my office/studio for the bat, which I'm sure was hanging upside down, sound asleep somewhere up there but I found nothing. You ever been in an artist's studio? There are thousands of possible sites for a bat bed. I decided to let the winged beast come to me. Jay had gone to bed and I was on the porch, watching TV, when sure enough! A shadow zipping through the kitchen caught the corner of my eye. First thing I did was close off the porch so the thing couldn't escape out there. Then I grabbed a beach towel off a hook in the back hall and followed the bat into the TV room. In retrospect, I should have turned on a light. I could see the little guy doing figure 8s along the ceiling but forgot that when I used the towel to knock him out of the air, he'd hit the ground...somewhere in the dark.
Well, nuts.
Fortunately, I hadn't stunned him too badly...by the time I turned on a light, he was back in the air, headed for the kitchen and cursing at me in batty squeaks. At least that room was well lit. But I lost him. I knew he (I keep referring to it as 'he' because I don't like to think of anything that ugly being female) was either in the back hall or had gone upstairs. All I could do was wait for him to present himself again. I figured I'd already paused whatever I was watching and I was up, so I may as well go outside and deal with the hornet's nest. Jay had gotten a can of hornet spray for me; all I had to do was use it. It was dark out by then, so I knew the bees would be in the nest and somnolent. You want to kill bees? Do it while they're sleeping. Like George Washington and the Hessians.
So, I hung the beach towel back on the hook and went for the back door and there was the bat, clinging to the screen on the back window. We saw each other at the same time. I grabbed the towel as he took to the air and with a very lucky swing, I managed to knock him to the floor, where I scooped him up in the towel and tossed his irate, squeaky ass out into the night where it belonged. Victory!
Then, I closed the door behind me and went into the garage for the ladder and the can of instant death. I was on a roll. The directions on the can of Die Bug Die! said it would spray up to 27 feet but I didn't want to get any in my office window, so I climbed all the way up onto the roof and began my onslaught from about 6 feet from the nest.
I let loose the white foam of death and in an instant, that nest was obliterated and immediately, dozens of little black bodies began to rain out of the nest onto the roof. It was awe inspiring, actually. Better living through chemicals!
The next day, we could see a river of hornet bodies from the top of the window trim, all down the roof to the gutter. One good rainstorm and it would be as though that hornet's nest had never existed.
So I don't know why some random chipmunk thought it could move into my house.
Yesterday morning, while sitting at my computer, I heard an odd noise in the front of the room and looked up to see what I thought was a red squirrel, creeping along the window sill of my front picture window...the inside window sill. OH, buggers!
I may have used some bad language, I wasn't really listening. I went and opened the front door, hoping it would take advantage of the exit being offered but of course, when I went to the front of the house, the stupid thing ran into the back of the house. It moved much faster than I thought it could but I did see that it went into the TV room. So I followed. It was sitting on the arm of Jay's recliner. That's when I saw, to my relief, that it was a chipmunk, and not a red squirrel, although I don't know why I thought that was preferable. Red squirrels are mean; chipmunks are just terrified.
Again, I opened the sliding door, hoping it would just go and go it did, but not outside; it went like the dickens thought the kitchen and out onto the porch.
This was an improvement, as I could close up the porch so it couldn't get away. Then, I took the screens off two of the windows so it could escape but I realized I couldn't go anywhere or do anything until I was sure it had left the house. I was supposed to be at the Picket Fence for my weekly meetings with customers but I wasn't about to leave that critter in the house, or the windows open. I didn't want to return home to discover a hawk having that chipmunk for lunch on my loveseat. I spent the next half hour trying to herd the rodent up and out of the window. I even put a wicker chair by the window, acting as a ladder to freedom. Turns out, it's not as easy to herd chipmunks as you may have been lead to believe. Stupid thing just kept zinging from one corner of the room to another but wouldn't go up the wall! At one point, I even put some cereal in the window sills, hoping it would act as bait. I'm happy to say that after waaaay tooo much time, Chippy finally ran up the wicker chair, paused for a moment on the window sill, then leapt to freedom.
It was at this point that I realized I'd left the sliding door to the TV room wide open. By the grace of God, the chipmunk didn't jump out the window and right back into the house through that open door but instead raced off the edge of the deck into the shrubs, where he'd have an incredible and exciting story to tell his grandchildren, so they'd know that insufferable Peter Rabbit wasn't the only garden rodent with interesting stories about sticking it to the man.
As I closed up all the windows and doors in my house, I contemplated the glories of nature and the cycle of life and realized I'd learned an important lesson that morning;
I need a bb gun.