--- Feb. 25 2009 ---
While trying to come up with topics to write about for this blog, it quickly became apparent that I should have a topic titled, "My friend Murphy." It seems that good ol' Murphy has a way of showing up in my life when I least expect him, when I least need him or when I apparently just need a good story to tell. Such was the case in September 2004 ...
It started off like a typical Saturday morning. My husband - let's call him Clark Kent - and I were enjoying a few extra hours of sleep and my 7-year-old cat was curled up next to me enjoying some snuggle time. But as we all began to stir from our slumber, we heard ... the noise. A scratching sound, somewhere in our room. Listening more carefully it became obvious that the sound was on my side of the room. Was it in the wall? Was it a Palmetto Bug? Something bigger? A lizard?
Given our uncertainty about the source of the scratching, we thought it best to lock the cat out of the bedroom while we investigated. You see, my dear Shelby is an expert hunter and he would certainly chase after anything we found, and neither one of us was in the mood to clean up lizard guts off our cream colored carpet.
With the cat safely out of the room, we began narrowing in on the source. It wasn't under the bed. It wasn't behind the laundry basket. It wasn't outside the window. But maybe ... yes. The noise was coming from under my nightstand.
Before we moved the nightstand to reveal the source of the scratching, Clark thought it would be good to have something to trap and catch the culprit. If it was a lizard, it would move pretty quickly and we didn't want to spend the day chasing it around our room. While AJ fetched the small plastic garbage can from our bathroom, I pulled the bed away from the wall to allow a second access point to my nightstand which was located almost in the corner of the room.
When he returned, Clark told me to move the nightstand slowly so he could watch for our visitor and capture it. As I started shifting the nightstand away from the wall, AJ's face paled and he sternly, yet quietly said, "Stop. Don't move. Don't speak."
Frozen in fear of what I couldn't see, I stared blankly at him.
"I want you to very carefully push the nightstand back against the wall so there is no gap."
Once this was done, I fearfully asked him what he had seen.
"A tail. A big, furry tail."
And with that, the scratching intensified.
While Clark secured the nightstand, I called our friendly Orkin man for assistance.
Upon his arrival, the Orkin man and my husband disappeared behind our closed bedroom door to meet our unwanted guest. A few minutes later, the Orkin man emerged with a squirrel securely held between the tongs of his "capture tool."
A squirrel? You've got to be kidding me!
Apparently, the squirrel had found its way into our house on Friday morning when Clark had the garage open. While Clark was outside, he had left the interior door to the house open into the garage. The squirrel, who we believe had been hit by a car, was seeking a quiet corner to die and found its way into our garage. While the door to the house was open, it had managed to find its way across the short hallway into our bedroom.
When I arrived home on Friday night, I noticed a number of strange dirt marks on our bedroom carpet, in our closet and in the master bath. I thought the cat had been sick or had gotten into my plants. I was perplexed by the mess, but cleaned it up and never gave it a second thought. Suddenly the dirt had a source - it was from the squirrel's travels throughout the day on Friday.
The most amazing thing about the squirrel's 24 hours in our house is the fact that our cat never seemed to know it was there. The cat and the squirrel had been alone in the house together all day on Friday. Surely if Shelby had found the squirrel, there would have been a fight. Thankfully, at that time, Shelby had been spending his days in the sunny windows on the other side of the house. Aside from sleeping in the same room on Friday night, the two never crossed paths.


