What happened to my spine?

I was taking a nap this morning after I dropped Emily off at Dawn's. After sleeping for an hour, I heard a noise downstairs. I went to check it out and found a black squirrel sitting on the bake table in the kitchen. I had left the glass patio door open so it was just the screen door there. But, this is something I always do and it's never a problem. It wasn't ajar. However, I could see two smallish holes about chest height (see photo evidence). The damn squirrel had obviously jumped from the deck railing onto the door and clawed its way in to get at my oh-so-delicious banana bread.

It was freaked out when it saw me. In my infinite wisdom, I yelled at it (hoping to scare it back through its entry way) and then when that didn't work, I smartly chucked something at it. Of course, all this did was force it to leap through the opening to the living room and hang out in there. So, I opened the screen door hoping it would return to the kitchen and run out the back.

I grabbed a mop and went into the living room. I jabbed towards it trying to make it flee back through the opening to the kitchen. No luck. It ran by me towards the front screen door and took a flying leap onto that screen which, of course, only frustrated the squirrel. It took another run at it. By this time, I was on the phone with John who encouraged me to use the mop, chase it, etc, etc. My biggest worry was that it would head upstairs. I didn't want the thing in the bedrooms and I didn't want to have to follow it up there.

Of course, its next course of action was to go upstairs (you could've guessed that, right?). So, back on the phone with John. He suggested I go get Kumar (our neighbour) to help me. Of course, Kumar wasn't home. So, rather than chase it upstairs, I propped open the front screen door now giving it two wide openings to the outside and I sat in the living room (mop in hand) and waited for it to come back downstairs and peacefully make its way outside.

I should say at this point that people with spines would have just gone upstairs but here's the thing for me: I hate squirrels. I hate them in houses, cottages etc. I don't even like them much outside. Last summer I became known around the cottage as Mengele because I waged war on a brood of squirrels that were constantly coming into the cottage, eating our food, running along the wiring in the ceiling etc. They were hissing and climbing the walls. I tried the humane approach but eventually about 6 squirrels ended up going swimming and being buried behind the shed (and thus the name Mengele was applied to me). It was the killing fields.

The squirrel of today was a large, black squirrel rather than the smaller, red squirrels at the cottage. This was a different league. These guys seem a little more vicious and I feel pretty vulnerable when squirrels are in my house/cottage and are perched above my head where they can easily fly towards my face, claws flying. So, that is why I wanted no piece of chasing it upstairs. I also wanted to see it go out a door and I thought that if I chased it from upstairs I wouldn't necessarily see it leave (leaving me to wonder if it was still somewhere in the house/vents).

So after I came back from confirming Kumar wasn't home, John phoned to tell me he was borrowing a car and coming to help me. Thank me stars! He came home and within five minutes the squirrel was flying out the front door (really, it was flying). I closed everything, told John he was my hero, he laughed at me and my pathetic (yet well-grounded) fear of squirrels and was on his way. I went back to the kitchen to clean up (luckily there wasn't too much of a mess). As I was sweeping I saw a movement on the deck.

It was the squirrel. He was peering up at the hole he made and clearly wondering if he could get back in. Honestly, can you blame me for waging my war on these things? I don't think the gene pool is missing those six from last summer. Natural selection. If these guys dare to come near me, then they deserve what they get. Unfortunately, there is no lake nearby for me to test out his swimming skills so I'll have to put up with him until something else higher on the food chain gives him what's coming to him.

The plus side to all of this, is that I'm hoping the stress/excitement will put me into labour because I'm really ready to have this baby.