A Non-Fire and Squirrely Morning

There is never a dull moment around here . . . what do I have to do to get some drama-free days?!?!  The Saturday evening that Kevin was on his plane to Belgium (a couple of weeks ago), I discovered a loud hissing sound coming from an outlet in the kitchen as I was shutting down the house for the night.  I couldn't feel any heat on the wall or detect any steam or smoke coming from the outlet, but the hissing was pretty loud.  I unplugged everything and called 911.  They came quietly (thank goodness because it was after midnight) to check out the problem.  The firemen checked the outlets, the breaker box and tested several areas with their equipment.  After about an hour, they told me that we were not in danger of an electrical fire but to call an electrician in the morning to investigate.  Whew!  About an hour later, I discovered that the sound was back in the wall.  I called the fire department back out, but they still couldn't detect anything.  At around 3:00 AM, I decided that I needed Nana and Pops to come help me figure out what to do.  Kevin was about to land in Paris and catch a train to Brussels.  We spoke briefly, but I assured him that we were safe and assessing the situation.  We all did lots of investigating, and Nana finally came up with a new thought about 4:30 in the morning.  What if the hissing was water, not electricity?  Sure enough, the hot water heater backed up to the wall making the sound, and we discovered a hot and slightly damp wall behind a decorative plate.  There was not a lot of sleep that night, but our friendly plumber came on Sunday to fix a tiny little hole in the pipe that was causing the trouble.  What a bunch of drama!

Fast forward to this Tuesday morning . . . Kevin had left for work, and I was taking the kids to school for their early Halloween parties.  We loaded up the car with trick-or-treating pumpkins, candy, gifts for the teachers, and cookies for their parties.  I open the garage door and back out like normal, then hit the button to close the garage door like normal.  It closes half way but goes back up.  Hmmm, that's weird.  I hit the button again, and again it goes down about half way but goes back up.  I happen to notice on the way back up that a squirrely tail is waving around on the top right side of the garage door!  Uh Oh!  So I'm freaking out that a squirrel is caught in the garage door, but I don't want the boys to panic.  I start telling them about a silly squirrel that Mommy needs to find because they are asking why we are not going to school yet.  I hit the button a few more times trying to knock the squirrel down so he can run away, but I didn't get my wish.  The little guy had gotten his back half crushed in all of the action.  He fell to the ground and was pulling himself in circles by his front feet.  I watch in horror from the car as he pulls himself into the garage between a box and the wall.  NO WAY, you are not staying in my garage!!!  So I tell the boys I have to get out to catch the silly squirrel, and they are laughing like crazy.  (I am not laughing at all!)  I grab a broom and hit the box he's hiding behind but that just scares him.  After a few moments of silence, he begins to flutter his tail a bit.  I gather all of my strength (and wits) and knock the boxes over to get to him.  I scream a crazy Incredible Hulk scream as I sweep him out on to the driveway.  OMG, I am freaking out!!!!!!  The squirrel is now halfway between the open garage door and my car, so I hop over him (screaming out again) and jump in the car.  Linc wants to know why I am screaming, and I tell him I am squealing with delight at the silly squirrel.  Yeah, I meant the devil squirrel but silly squirrel sounded much more friendly for a 3 year old.  I hit the button to close the garage door, and I discovered that our new "friend" had knocked the door off the track by getting caught in it opening and closing 5 times.  Not good!!! 

So there is a half paralyzed squirrel freaking out in the driveway and a garage door that isn't closing.  I can't leave this situation, and Kevin is already out at a meeting.  I put on my big girl panties and headed in to fix the problem!  The squirrel was my first concern because the door didn't go all the way down, and he was trying his best to pull himself back to the garage.  I weighed the little guy's options and decided that no one was going to perform emergency surgery on his lower half so he just needed to be put out of his misery . . . and I could get on to fixing the door without the threat of a repeat garage intruder.  I got back in the car, answered Linc's questions cheerfully and floored it at the squirrel then backed up to see the damage.  I missed the squirrely guy!  I tried three more times to end him, but each time he scooted out of the way.  Are you laughing yet?  Tearfully laughing?  You can imagine that Lincoln and Beau are suffering from serious whiplash from the crazy forward and reversing I'm doing, but they are giggling and think Mommy is being silly.  Thank goodness!  I told them that I was chasing the silly squirrel!  So my SUV isn't enough to put an end to the squirrel, and I'm crazy mad.  I jump out of the car (in skinny pants and 3 inch heels) and stomp up to him screaming to GET AWAY RIGHT NOW!  Either my murderous vehicle or my madwoman screams made him scurry under a brick and play dead.  Thank goodness!!  My next concern was fixing the garage door so all of the squirrel's cousins didn't decide to take their revenge on me by tearing up my garage.  I climbed up on a ladder to try to fix the garage door.  The knob/roller/ball/thingy was not on the metal track, and neither of those things have any "give".  I gave up on my strength to bend them after a few minutes (and loud screams) and tried a hammer to knock them one way or the other for another few minutes (and louder screams).  No luck.  I keep running over to the windows of the car to make silly faces to the boys so they think this is all fun and games . . . it's not though!!!  I pulled the rope to manually close the garage door, but at first that made my task harder.  I was fighting gravity and the steel track.  I finally pulled the door almost shut (really, that thing is heavy) and climbed back on my ladder (still in my heels) and managed to get the thingy back on the track as it curves right at the wall of the garage.  I ran to hit the button and check that it was working properly!!  Thankfully we were back in business.  I went in to wash my cut up and bloodied hands about 700 times then went back to check on the boys.  When I opened the car door, Lincoln shouted, "Yay Mommy!  You fixed the door!!!"  I'm so glad he was proud of me because I was pretty proud of me too! 

I decided not to take any pictures of the squirrel, may he rest in peace.  I'm not sure what happened to him because his corpse wasn't by the brick when we got home tonight.  Maybe he was rescued and treated to a nice squirrel funeral . . . but it better not have been in my back yard!!!!!

After all of this action, I had exactly 7 minutes to get the boys to school for trick-or-treating.  We flew down Coit and made it just in time.  Both boys reported that they had a great day and got lots of fun treats in their pumpkins!  Instead of wearing costumes to school, they had pajama day.  Before the drama, I had to take their picture in their cute pjs.   

So can I get some peace around here?  We all arrived home to a squirrel free evening, but who knows what tomorrow holds?  All I know is that the next squirrel invasion is not going to be handled by me!