So a bunch of squirrels started nesting in the firewall between my house and my neighbor’s house, just chewed straight through the roof and made themselves at home in the special jurisdiction that was hard to determine whether it belonged to us or our neighbor’s, and where neither side’s chosen exterminators could really see them. I think it was eventually determined the hole was on our neighbor’s property, so they hired this trapping company with employees that exclusively looked like they were in either ZZ Top or Duck Dynasty to put cages on the roof with bait and come out with a big ladder every afternoon and check the traps. So I’d be sitting in my living room and all of a sudden I’d hear THWONK THWONK THWONK SCREEEEEECH and see a giant blue ladder unfurl as a river hippie with a wizard beard stomped his way past my window.
You could hear when the squirrels got trapped in the cages because they’d rattle the bars like a fat, fat, asshole version of my elementary school hamster, Pearl. Just up there running it’s tiny tin cup against it’s cell.
Fuckers.
Honestly, I was so pro-squirrel before this. I have a Christmas ornament of a tiny squirrel frolicking in glitter snow with a tiny acorn. I like fluffy things, no matter how rat-like. I like rats. Mice. Chinchillas. Chipmunks. Everything except Guinea Pigs. My sister had a Guinea Pig named Pichou that instead of being shaped like a can of beans, like a Guinea Pig, was long and thin like he had been put on the rack, was blessed with coarse, thick, flat hair (not fur) like a long nut sack, and had a sizeable bald spot that never went away. His only talent was kicking his turds an incredibly long distance out of his cage in all directions, like fecal shot put.
The squirrels made the same kettle-about-to-boil sounds as Pichou in the walls. They also barked, which Google tells me meant they were either fighting for territorial dominance or fucking, which seems like a very error-prone system of communication.
Anyways, fingers crossed, they’ve all been trapped, and the rednecks are taking them to an island, yes, I shit you not, this company will trap the squirrels, house them, drive them onto a ferry, and unleash them on an island. Squirrels. If you ever think tender-hearted people don’t exist, please remember this company that is willing to expend manpower to take a squirrel across a goddamn stretch of ocean and put it on a private squirrel island.
The stragglers that didn’t get caught did of course try to re-enter their roofline fuck palace, at which point they promptly got stuck in the eavestrough. Of course, it was days before someone tried to Google “squirrel in eavestrough” and noticed that all the results were Canadian – apparently very few places use the term eavestrough which probably explains why every time we tried to explain where the squirrels were we got the runaround. There were five or six of us standing on the curb listening to these little fuckers run around the entire span of the house, their demon hooves clacking against the metal EAVESTROUGH.
I don’t know how they got out, but I do know a couple days later, I open the door to go outside, and one is sitting on my welcome mat, staring at me in silence. So I yelled “GET OUT OF HERE YOU LITTLE MOTHERFUCKER” like a sane person that lives in a family neighborhood. And that squirrel RAN UNDER MY CAR. I was parked on the street, not the driveway, it wasn’t even the first large object it could hide under. It knew where I lived, and it knew where I was going. So I ran at it from one direction, it popped it’s head out and looked at me, and went back under the car. So I ran at it from the other direction, and once again, it got about a foot away from the car, to demonstrate it’s lack of fear and respect for me, ran underneath again. Then I just started the car. It didn’t get hit, but I was willing to take the chance. I was scared when I opened the door it was going to get in and taunt me like the Caddyshack gopher (another fur pest I love.) You have to draw a line somewhere. I’m not in the squirrel ferrying business.