The Squirrel Story Republished

 

The Squirrel Story Republished

 

Over the last several years I have written short stories. Some were lost due to Computer hard disc crashes, some were somehow deleted, and some were sent out in printed form by mail to a small group. When the Owen Newsletter first started, my daughter, Margaret Rose, typed up the stories, printed them out and mailed them. Over the years, old stories seem to disappear. Like an artist, Now that I am famous, people want to get copies of some of my oldest and best stories.

One of my most commented-on stories was a true story about a squirrel that got in my house and wreaked havoc and really got Anita’s blood circulation going. We lived in town for a number of years until my yearning to live in the country caused us to sell our house in Bremerton, Washington and look for land in the county to build a country home.

After over a year of searching available properties, I found a beautiful 2 ½ acre parcel with a peek-a-boo view of Mount Rainier. I first had a two-story building put up with the top floor for Anita’s overgrown quilting business and the lower part for my tools and wood. The plan was to bulldoze out a spot and build a house. Anita drew up the plans and we rented a place until we could build the house.

I came across an old single wide mobile home that needed extensive work and had it delivered to the property. I ripped out carpeting, replaced windows, installed new flooring. I dug a  trench for water and electricity, paid for numerous permits and finally, we moved in. We moved Anita’s quilting business into the new two-story building and moved my tools and wood products into the new building.

In the Mobile home kitchen area, there was a spot for a stove exhaust fan that had been removed and an exhaust pipe going through the roof. I closed off the  vent with a circular piece of wood and some duct tape.  At last, we were living on our property.  The plan was to live in the Mobile until we built our house based on Anita’s plans.

Well, we lived in the mobile longer than we planned for various reasons.

Just recently, my sweet sister. Vonda Lee called me and asked me if I could get her a copy of my Squirrel story. Despite searching and asking people if they had kept a copy, it fell upon me to recreate the popular story.  My first cousin Eddie Dean bragged about the squirrel story for years. Every time I would see him, he would tell me how much he enjoyed the story. He said that as he read the story, he felt as if he were there observing the squirrel’s antics. I did get compliments from people who Margaret Rose had mailed  my stories . I don’t know if I can do justice to the original story but since I promised my sweet sister, Vonda Lee, I will give it my best shot. Ray Stevens had a hit comedy record entitled: The Day the Squirrel Got Loose in the Antioch Babtist Church.

If you have not heard this squirrely song, listen to it. I saw Ray Stevens once at the ARIZONA State fair when his song the Streak was popular. Well, I guess enough background, so here you go sweet sister Vonda.

 

THE SQUIRREL STORY AND ANITA’S NEW DANCE ROUTINE

The characters in the below true story are true characters, especially the wayward squirrel. This is a true story with only very minor embellishments.

So, as you recall, we were living in a single wide mobile in Kitsap County Washington on a beautiful 2 ½ acre piece of property. I rehabbed the mobile home to make it livable. In the kitchen there was a vent pipe going through the roof. At one time, a stove vent had been attached.  I used my bandsaw to cut a round plug for the vent pipe. I fastened the plug and duct taped around it to keep out critters.

Well, the fix worked for bears, cougars and even Santa Clause. None of the aforementioned climbed or (clumb (N.C. word)) down the pipe.  But there was one exception.

It was a cold November night. The wind was blowing, and the sky was filled with dark clouds. For some reason we had a queen-sized  waterbed. Don’t ask, I can’t explain why. Anita and I were bundled up with quilts even though the waterbed was heated. She sometimes ended up with most of the bed clothing come early morning. I was frequently left in the cold with my ass hanging out.

Anita does not like scary stories. Once in  a theater in Port Orchard, Washington, I took her to a scary movie and bought her a big, I mean, big bag of popcorn. Suddenly, a vampire, a monster or a creepy ax murderer flashed on the screen and screamed. It was a loud scream and a little startling  to me. But to Anita, Moreso.

She let out a blood curdling scream that really scared people seated around us. I was a little embarrassed but soon to become much more embarrassed when she literally threw the huge bucket of popcorn into the air. People five rows down were drenched in extra butted popcorn. Long story short, we are not allowed in that theatre to this day. We had to drive further to see movies on the big screen and believe me, I have not taken Anita  to a scary movie since. She gets pretty excited when a TV program shows a snake. She is deathly afraid of snakes. I was watching her watch a snake on TV once and her eyes were big as saucers, she was breathing funny, and she curled her feet up into her recliner. I thought I would have a ha ha and I walked up behind her, bent over, and pinched her ankle. I find it hard to describe her reaction. She flew up into the air. Screamed a 100+ decibel scream, overturned her recliner, and threw a shoe at the TV within the period of 23 seconds. I won’t go into great detail, but I don’t do that anymore.

Sorry, I got sidetracked. Back to the squirrel story with only brief intermissions. No guarantees.

So, there we were all comfortable in out waterbed when all of a sudden Anita broke three of my ribs with her elbow, might have been only two but felt like three. She developed this squeaky voice, and I was having trouble hearing what she was attempting to say due to acute rib pain . Finally, I was able to decipher her loud whisper as: “Get up, Get up, Get up, something is in the house.”  As I became more awake, I explained to her: You are dreaming. I locked the deadbolts on the door. There is nobody in the house. Well, she did not accept my explanation. She said something like dammit, I heard something. She was becoming frantic, and I might have made a mistake by asking her to calm down. Here came the elbow again on my sore ribs. “Listen, Listen, Listen said she in rapid fire. I hear it.

Finally, I decided to humor her and listen. My gosh, something really was in the house. I heard the fast patter of little feet and saw a grey streak in the dawn’s early light. I really did not want to get up that early, but Anita was hyperventilating, and I decided to be the man and solve the intrusion. Just at that moment, what later turned out to be a gray squirrel jumped up from the floor to the cloths rod in our closet. I had yet to hang closet doors. The squirrel was a streak running back and forth on the closet rod and making little squeaking sounds like: oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. The squirrel was approaching panic mode. Anita reached panic mode before the squirrel, and she jumped up on the waterbed.

Now, I don’t know how many of you  have tried to stand on a waterbed, but she not only stood, but she also jumped up and down in a rhythmic patter. I was enthralled. I had only seen someone do the Watusi dance once on a National Geographic special on Africa. Well, she was surpassing the native dancers and even adding new moves to the dance.

While I was observing this magnificent dance move, she started screaming. I had to listen closely to discern what she was saying. At first I thought she was singing some African song to accompany her Watusi dance. But as I listened closer, she was saying :

Gititout,gititout, gititout, gititout.

Well once I understood that she wanted me to convince the squirrel to go outside,  I got out of the waterbed. Actually, to tell the truth, I was bounced out of the bed as Anita was really getting into her unique dance.

I jumped out of the bed to see what was the matter, what was causing all the clatter and as my eyes focused, I determined the apparatus running back and forth on the closet rod was a long tailed grey squirrel.

I calmly told Anita, don’t worry, it is only a squirrel. She responded with the rapid fire: gititout, gititout , gititout  again.

I had a stick beside the bedroom door with a fuzzy end to clean spider webs. I grabbed the stick and tried to knock the squirrel to the floor. I was never really good at baseball and each time I swung the stick, the squirrel was faster and at the other end of the closet rod. Finally, I got tired of swinging the stick although it seemed that my swinging was coordinated with Anita’s Watusi dance movements. Sort of like a band conductor. The squirrel was in full panic mode and making strange noises. Sounded like, helpme, helpme, helpme. It was like he was getting in tune with Anita’s song of: getitout, getitout, getitout.

I was worn out and my ribs were hurting due to my wild swinging of the stick, so I rested the stick on the closet rod to catch my breath. Just as I laid the stick on the rod, the squirrel ran toward me and tripped on the stick. I originally  told that I took careful aim and knocked the intruder to the floor, but I decided on this go around, I would tell the truth.

The squirrel tripped to the floor, looked up at Anita doing her moves and looked up at me and clearly said: Help me Dammit. I nudged the squirrel through the bedroom door and opened the back entry door. I don’t know what the record for a long jump is, but it appeared to me that the squirrel jumped a good 50 feet in the air as he exited the door.  Of course, I was the hero and Anita’s chant changed to: isitout, isitout, isitout??

Calm returned to the single-wide mobile. Anita fell to the waterbed exhausted. I found an ace bandage to wrap around my ribs. Anita finally fell asleep, and I hobbled to work.

When I got home that evening, Anita showed me how the squirrel got into the house. The vent pipe I had fixed had the round stopper hanging down still attached to the duct tape. The squirrel  had fallen down the vent and its weight  had dislodged the stopper. I reinforced it . I just wish I could have heard the squirrel telling his version of the adventure to his family.

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