Of Course You Know: This Means WAR

[bloodyrosemccoy]

When the suburb you live in is a few blocks away from a national forest, you’ve got to be prepared for some animal activity. Quail will congregate in the middle of the street, deer will eat your garden plants, and every so often rattlesnakes will decide your driveway is nice and baskable. Sometimes birds will make nests in your dryer exhaust. Sometimes skunks will vent their panic glands in your vicinity. And sometimes you will wake up to find that your beloved cat Charlotte has probably been eaten by a mountain lion.

But you take this all philosophically enough, because you may have loved your cat, but you do live next to a god damn mountain. You will give the animals fair play.

At least, until they get into your house.

Yes, our house has a varmint in the ceiling, and it has been there for weeks. Probably it’s a raccoon, although judging by the amount of noise it’s been making it could also be a moose.* We do not know how it got in, although my money’s on the chimney. We just want to figure out how it will get out. We have used a number of strategies:

-Yelling At It To Keep The Noise Down

-Exhorting The Cat To Do Her Damn Job**

-Having An Exterminator Come In And Tell Us It’s Probably A Bird, Then Say It’s Not His Job To Do Birds

-Yelling At The Varmint Some More

-Endlessly Quoting Various Lines And Catchphrases From Aliens

-Checking The Chimneys And Capping Them***

-Discovering This Did Not Work When A Varmint Misstepped And Fell Through The Eaves, Spilling Insulation Gunk All Over The Deck And Nearly Severing Our Internet Cable

… And that’s as far as we’ve gotten; Dad and I just managed to wedge the eave into place, but we’re going to have to come up with a new strategy that is not “Nuke the site from orbit.” (See? It’s hard not to make a reference.) My suggestion to bust out the Shop Vac has been vetoed, but I still think it’s a good idea. But Dad better come around fast. I’m not so sure the varmints’ next attempt to cut our internet and power will fail.


*Or a cephalopod, as I am so often reminded.

**Although given that the cat is officially a “senior” cat, perhaps she thinks she’s due for retirement.

***That one was a team effort. Dad bought the roof safety kit, scaled the ladder, managed to climb from ladder to roof despite his fake hip, roped himself to the chimney so that he would not fall the several-story drop from our side-o’-the-mountain house, checked for varmints, screwed caps onto the openings, and gingerly climbed down. Me, I held the ladder.

Comments

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

... thank you ever so much for making that previously unconsidered connection in my head. *eyes ceiling* Y'see, we've got a varmint too, and now whenever it wakes me up in the middle of the night, I'll be thinking terrible things and calling for my brave cat.

Fortunately we live in a suburban house. With no basement.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

When I got into Lovecraft, my room was in the basement. After I read The Lurking Fear, I slept upstairs on the couch with the light on for the next three nights.

So in other words, yeah, I get your reaction. Sorry, dude.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

Ouch. I hope there weren't any thunderstorms during that time period.

[westrider.livejournal.com]

I hope there weren't any thunderstorms during that time period.

Fortunately*, we don't get many thunderstorms around here.

*In that case. In general, I wish we did have more thunderstorms; I rather like them.

[ellixis.livejournal.com]

I enjoy thunderstorms myself, but in the situation, yeah, total nightmare material.