Originally posted in February of 2009
"Just a Jump to the Left. And a step to the right..."
This mini time-warp is being brought to you by route of a rambling comment I left on some poor person's blog post about squirrels and raccoons. I finally realized that more than a paragraph wasn't appropriate, and so directed her to read the rest of the fascinating tale on my site. Which was NOT, I swear, a ploy to get more traffic. HONEST to gosh.
Let's go back. WAaaaaayyyy back so that our heads touch the floor, to a time where I was pregnant with my first bambino. Ah, the days of innocence. Before I knew what "tired" meant. Before I had enough extra skin on my stomach to craft a babushka....
doodley doo. doodley doo. doodley doo....
Setting the scene...
November 1999. Small Sears kit house from the 1920's with a weird heating system.
Enter younger version of Tracey. Short hair with less gray and bad perm. ENORMOUS pregnant belly (and ass). Carries bag with Taco Bell goodies inside.
After a long day of work, I stumble through the door into a frigid house. Shivering and vaguely recalling something that dear husband said about "...don't turn on the heat... blah blah.... something in the chimney... blah blah... wait for me to get home..." I disregard what spouse said because it is FRIGID in the house and I am PREGNANT and I need heat. And also Taco bell tacos and Orange Crush, but I digress...
Flip on the heater and get changed, watch a little tv while waiting for the house to warm up and DARLING husband to get home from his late shift. Notice that the cats are being all weird and chasing each other. Grumble to myself about the stupid stinkin cats...
Hear one of the cats make a strange, otherworldly mrowling growling hiss...
Look into the tiny galley kitchen to see my BELOVED feline friend(I was pregnant and totally allowed 180 mood changes) having a stand off with a rabid squirrel!!
Ok. He probably wasn't rabid. I mean, he wasn't foaming at the mouth but I WAS PREGNANT and holy shit! A SQUIRREL?!? In my HOUSE?!? Are you freakin kidding me?!?
Scream.
SHRIEK.
Jump around like a little girl.
Well, maybe not little girl, as I was HUMONGOUS but you can picture it, right? Gestating and gesticulating, I grabbed a broom and began to swipe and shout at the top of my lungs at the squirrel, who just glared at me before he darted AT ME because the cat was chasing it the wrong way!
Stupid cat.
Somewhere in the midst of this hysteria, I snatched the phone and called Patrick at work. The conversation went something like:
Tracey: "SQUIRREL! IN THE HOUSE!! RABIES! MY BAAAAAAABBBY!!!"
Patrick: "Why did you turn on the heater?"
Tracey: "ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!? SQUIRREL!!!!!! GET HOME!!!! AYIEIEIEIEEEEE!!!!"
Patrick: "I have to do blah blah blah work related crap blah blah and will get home when I can...."
Tracey: "YOU ARE COMING HOME NOW!!!! SQUIRREL!!! IN THE HOUSE!!!! RABIES! MY BAAAAABYYYY!!!"
Seriously. It would have been comical had I not been sobbing and screaming and TRULY terrifed for my baby's life. And my beloved cat's life, who got trapped in the basement with the rabid rodent when they both ran down and I slammed the door shut.
Thank God Patrick worked close to home back then. He got there in about 15 minutes and managed to chase the nasty beast up the stairs and out the back door. But I am telling you now, it was horrible!
(Apparently, the squirrel had gotten into our chimney through a hole in the screen on the rooftop and couldn't get out. Apparently, Patrick had KNOWN this and didn't make it crystal clear to me that it was still in our heating vents. Had I KNOWN that there was a live rodent in our heating vents, I not only wouldn't have turned the heater on, I also wouldn't have COME HOME that night!!)
Moral of the story: Don't turn on the heat if your spouse says it might be a bad idea. CALL him first and find out what he meant, no matter how cold you are and how much you want to just eat your tacos in peace and quiet.
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3 comments:
That's hilarious!!
I actually had a close encounter with a squirrel about a month ago. Husband and I were driving and we saw a squirrel on the road, we didn't run to run over it so we stopped to let it pass. Except it didn't. After a few seconds I got out of the car and tried to shoo it away, but it came up to my feet and started rubbing on my shoes. He was just a baby and must have lost his way, so I asked my Husband if they bite and he told me that they don't and to just pick it up and put it on the grass... So I did. Once I picked it up, I fell so in love with the squirrel that trusted me so... I move it to a nearby bush and he ran along. When I got back into the car the first think Husband said was "I don't know why I told they don't bite. That thing could have gnawed your hand off."
Not as scary, but a squirrel story.
My turn for a paragraph (or two):
1. In our old apartment. My cat chasing a mouse. Me, trying to capture the mouse. Andy putting me on speaker when I called him screeeeeeching because he needed the person in his office to laugh at me too.
2. A month post-partum. Daytime with my brand new 1st baby. In our new house. A BAT!! Andy too far away to be of use. Call my brother. Get his voicemail. He kept the "John, it's m- aaaaaahhhhhgggh! John, there's a bat. Eiiieeeee!!" voicemail for months! Locked us in my bedroom, then ran out with baby to my sister's house until someone got rid of the bat.
(Why do my stories sound like my house is crawling with vermin?)
Ahahahahahaaaaa...you poor thing. Hehe.
I am not in the least bit afraid of rodents. I think they're adorable. But, if one went anywhere near my baby...it would get whacked with a broom. Repeatedly.
Once, while turning the soil in my wee flowerbed in late April, I somehow ended up cradling a junebug larva in my bare hand. Oh, my goodlord, NO! The thing was a huge, fat, white grub with a huge orange head (with PINCERS!) and several twitching, orange legs.
I cried, people. For real. Dropped it on the ground, danced a freakout dance all over it and bawled like a baby.
*sigh*
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