16 March 2010

Sunday Day 71 2010

The day started with a trip by Starbucks to get my passport stamped. Buy one coffee a week and end up with a free pound of coffee. There is a promotion I can get my caffeine habit around. I then met up with a friend to go see Alice in Wonderland. Afterwards I came home and started mucking around in the computer when once again I heard the pitter-patter of little feat above my head.

There is nothing I like less than hearing the pitter-patter of uninvited guests above my head. I've been wondering what was making the pitter-patter and nothing that came to mind has been pleasing. Honestly I was kind of hoping it was squirrels, but I was worried it was rats. So yesterday I hear the pitter-patter again, go up into the attic, and find staring back at me from a across the attic a squirrel who is just standing there looking at me, pretty as you please, "Hi human, I like your house, nice of you to be sharing with me, it's a blustery day outside, I sure do like hanging out in your warm attic!" Well at least it was a squirrel and not some large sewer rat or something.

So I take an existing no-kill trap baiting with month-old peanut butter and stick it down at that end of the attic. I go downstairs and spend the next couple of hours listening to the squirrel scurry around my trap. I cannot stand it anymore, I check the trap. Somehow he's ignored it, not a fan of stale peanut butter I guess. I get in the car and go to Publix to look for tastier squirrel bait or at least a fresh jar of peanut butter. I come home and prepare my bait. I have a trap downstairs which I make ready for battle and I prepare fresh bait for the trap upstairs. I go up the stairs and carefully make my way back to the far reaches of the attic to set my traps. As I get toward the far end where the roof comes down to meet the top of the rafters I am obligated to lay on  my stomach and stretch out to get the traps where I want them. So I am in this position trying to set these darn traps when the insulation in front of me twitches and it takes a few seconds for me to register that insulation does not twitch all by itself. It twitches when there is something under it.

Perhaps a braver man would have lifted up the insulation twelve inches from the tip of his nose and said hello to his house guest. Not me. I figure the last thing I want to be is laying on my belly in the attic twelve inches from an annoyed squirrel looking at him eye to eye. I carefully finished setting baiting and setting my traps and quietly backed away leaving Mr. Squirrel to his nap.

No comments: