Now, before anyone accuses me of being a too-intense Shel Silverstein devotee, I want to point out that I’ve been driven to keeping the light in the attic on by circumstances outside my control. Yes, a single bulb burns in my attic on T Street, and will continue to burn for the foreseeable future. You see, as the fine folks at the D.C. Animal Shelter recently verified, a family of squirrels have made themselves at home in the space between my attic floor and the ceiling of my housemate’s room. And I want them gone.
I don’t think this is an odd request. My housemates want the squirrels evicted, too?hence the light, which theoretically discourages the little buggers from making themselves more at home. In fact, everyone I’ve ever talked to who has shared their living space with uninvited guests, be they rodents or the rodent-like significant others of their roommates, has wanted the infestation out.
However, I am having considerable difficulty getting people to see my point of view. Told that my house is infested with furry germ-carriers, my sister the animal-rights activist said, “You’re going to kill them, aren’t you? That’s fine, I hope you can sleep well at night knowing that whole families of baby squirrels don’t have mommies anymore, you squirrel mother-murderer!”
My mother, who apparently shares my sister’s radical tendencies, said, “Well, honey, I’m sure they just wanted to get in out of the cold! Poor little squirrels! They don’t like the snow either!”
The various other people I’ve surveyed have all said, “Well, I don’t see why you’re so worried. It’s not like they’re doing anything. Besides, it’s cold out, you heartless bitch!”
This is making me feel like a bad person for wanting the night noises to stop. I see a happy little family of good-natured, chubby-cheeked squirrels evicted by the nasty human house owners. As I envision the scene, Mommy and Daddy Squirrel go flying into a snow drift, quickly followed by Tommy and Janey Squirrel. Then, as Mommy Squirrel gathers her shivering progeny under her arms and Daddy Squirrel looks sorrowfully at his family, little squirrel suitcases land in the snow beside the family, and the camera cuts to a pair of legs, beyond which one can see the glow of the warm and snug attic hearth. From the legs, a voice that sounds creepily like my own hollers, “And stay out!”
I suppose all this is in keeping with most people’s experiences with squirrels. They see them spending their days merrily gathering nuts and scampering around campus looking photogenic and woodsy. Frankly, I don’t know what our squirrels do during the day, since they’re out and about and not a nuisance. They could, in fact, be out gathering acorns and giving aesthetic beauty to the campus. However, all this changes when darkness falls. Then the squirrels reconvene in their den and start clawing and digging, scrabbling like deranged sea creatures across the ceiling panels and noisily creating future generations of vermin.
This isn’t something you see in the cartoons. But I assure you, it is the reality. Chip and Dale had it all wrong. But I suppose no one will understand until the other shoe drops and the REAL story of my attic infestation unfolds:
The unknowing blonde heroine shines her flashlight into the impenetrable darkness of the creepy, silent attic as a thunderstorm rages outside. “Well,” she says in a tremulous but falsely confident voice, “I guess there’s nothing here!” From the rafters above her head, an ominous rustling, then silence. Then, exploding from off-camera, a glowing, fanged bulked-up squirrel flies through the air, clearly making for the jugular of our heroine. Blood sprays and screams echo as we fade to black.
