The Peter Saga pt. 2

I woke to a crash…

then the sound of little footsteps outside my bedroom door.

     It was 5:15 in the morning on February 16^th: my mother’s birthday. I had to be at the bakery at 6am to put out the pastries, so the loud noise coming from the hallway didn’t tick me off; it just scared the crud out of me. We live in a fairly rural area, so noise of any kind that wakes you up at 5am either indicates there is an intruder or a critter. Neither of which is a good thing. I always just assume there is a big, burly, bad guy in my house so I always feel prepared, if not a little jumpy.

     I opened my bedroom door and flipped on every light switch within reach. The crash had come from the laundry room, so I ventured there first. Had I been thinking, I would have grabbed a baseball bat, or my archery set from middle school that still sits in my closet. Of course, I would have then looked utterly ridiculous. As I turned on every light in the house, I found a metal bowl lying on the laundry room floor which had obviously been the source of the crash, but the footsteps?

There they were again!

I turned, and running across the living room floor was a ball of fur the size of a softball.

It was too big to be a mouse, and thank God it wasn’t a rat.  It stopped in the middle of the floor, looked at me with those big button eyes, and then ran straight at me.

Squirrel. It had to be a squirrel. Only squirrels are stupid enough to run straight at something 100x their size. He was too small to be a regular grey squirrel, and his big eyes told me this was our former houseguest, or at least one of his cousins. I started towards him, thinking he’d just run off somewhere and hide; then he u-turned and bolted straight for my parents’ bedroom. Ohhh crap, I thought. If he wakes Mom…

 The open bedroom door let in just enough light for me to see him jump up on parents’ bed, and run across my sleeping dad. He then opened his wing-like skin, and flew to the curtains hanging above my dad’s head. That’s when I lost it.

I’m a nervous laugher. I laugh at funerals, during severe weather, in the middle of church. If someone is having a temper tantrum and screaming at me, I’ll just burst out laughing. This is, of course, very unfortunate because it makes me seem uncaring, cold, or haughty. I’m not. I’m just nervous. I went to my dad’s side and shook him awake.

   “Daddy,” I giggled. “Remember our little friend from three months ago? He’s back and he’s hanging above your head.”

    I didn’t even need to say the s-word. Dad knew. I left the room and waited in the living room, giggling uncontrollably. Dad came out looking for a towel or a tennis racket. The goal was to apprehend the flying rodent without waking….

“Ahhhhh!!!!!!” Out came Mom, waving her arms wildly over her head, dressed head to toe in red cheetah-print long pajamas. “Oh my gaawwwsh!! It was on my head!!!!”

Now I was really nervous, and was doubled over laughing. That did not win me any points with Mom who proceeded to glare at me. She hates rodents more than anything else in the world. This is a woman who can leap from the floor to the counter without bending her knees if a mouse scurries into view. This squirrel made so bold as to snuggle up next to her face, and played with her hair. Obviously, he had boundary issues.

It was now 5:45 and I needed to get to work. When last I saw the poor birthday girl, she was cuddled up on the couch, crying quietly, with a red fleece blanket wrapped around her, her gaze fiercely sweeping the floor in front of her.  I knew it, dad knew it. The squirrel was going to die. In his attempt to snuggle, he had just declared war.