Asthmatic Squirrels

I have slacked a bit in the posting area but this entry should make up for it. Let's begin with a story...

Once upon a time there was a little house in the borderline ghetto, and it was infiltrated by evil beings. They were milky and almost translucent, squirmy and had no likable qualities. Said beings of evil started to eat the poor little house's innards. Luckily, the little house was able to show signs of the invaders' presence and action was taken. Thus beings our story of the asthmatic squirrel...

Part of the treatment for termites should include your bath tub. I learned this from numerous sources so when I was in the process of getting bids on a termite treatment I brought up the tub. Of the two companies, only one mentioned how the tub area should be treated and the method in which he would do so. I went with his company, Longhorn Pest Control.

He sawed out a rectangle of the drywall in my bedroom closet and low and behold, there was my tub. The importance of the tub area is that there is open space there and that the termites can some how find the water so they can come up through that space. Upon opening the hole to treat the area, the termite specialist noticed an excess amount of dirt and some feces...not of termite creation. He was kind enough to dig it out into a bag and dispose of it. He couldn't' think off the top of his head what it was but he had seen it before. We discussed what may have happened and that maybe something fell down there at some point. It didn't look like it happened recently so I found some comfort in that knowledge. I told TS (termite specialist) that if he found a Hobbit carcass to please not tell me as it would make me sad.

So hours later, around 1 am, I am on the edge of sleep. It had been a long work day and I had to cut a check for toxins which were sprayed into the new trench around my house, which would be filled in the next morning and then treated again. Important note...My bed is up against the side wall of my house, which is exposed to my neighbors yard. So as I am about to fall asleep, my mind finally slowing down, I hear a noise that sounds like scurrying. Once in each direction. Please note that the scurrying I heard was not above, no, not a rooftop scurry but more of the holy crap I think something is in the wall kind of scurry. Not only in the wall but behind where my head rests upon my pillow. Needless to say, this woke me up. okay, not a big deal as even in that moment I questioned the validity of what I was experiencing.

So there is no more scurrying and all is quite and I have calmed and am ready to go to sleep when in the quietness I hear what in my fertile imagination sounds like wheezing. The logical thing to do, well when you are half awake and it is creeping towards 2am, is what I did next. I put my ear to the wall.

What ran through my head, "I have something dying in my wall, by my head." It was a surreal moment and it was both sad and funny at the same time. I thought perhaps it is an asthmatic squirrel. Regardless, ear to the wall, I listened all the while thinking I have to be wrong but the way things have been going lately that I am gonna have to have a hole cut in my wall to extricate a squirrel who had a reaction to the termite treatment. Then, with my ear to the wall, listening hoping it would suddenly sound like a tree or some other explanation that doesn't involve death, a thought came to me. Ear still planted on the wall, laying sideways on the bed, this is when I thought that if this were a horror movie, this is when the mutated squirrel would reach through the wall and attack. Mind you it would be a very bad b movie, but there ya go. I finally went to sleep knowing there was nothing I could do and with hope that my asthmatic squirrel theory was wrong.

So far there is no stench and yesterday after work I peeked in the neighbors' yard and there is some sort of plant on the side of the house where my bedroom is. So I am hoping that there was in fact never a squirrel. I still have the image of a squirrel taking a hit of its inhaler.

More entries to come very soon! I have to share about the smoking fence and an awesome concert I recently went to - Ravi and Anoushka Shankar.

~Elaine