Squirrels Brandishing Guns

This is a sad tale. A tale of suburban slide, and a man who faced great peril as he overcame momentarily his fear of heights....

One overcast day just last week as we were buttoning down to our school work we received what appeared to be an aerial assault. It was coming from directly above us and we feared the worst...that those pesky varmints known as squirrels had gotten into our attic and were making nests up there. An urgent call was put through to the commander general, whereupon he was not delighted with the news, but promptly gained access to the command module for squirrel eradication information.

Next day happening to be Saturday the commander general took several trips to his favorite supply depots to acquire all of his necessary requirements. He assembled his weaponry and then upon review had to go back to visit the depots again, as items had apparently gone missing in action.

I was enlisted upon his return to help him suit up with gas mask, eye protection, and to duct tape on his hazmat gloves around his arms and his pant legs around his ankles should the varmints make a lifesaving dash for refuge. I failed to take a photo opportunity at that moment, I wish I had. He ascended the ladder into the dark recesses of the attic and closed the hatchway with an ominous thud. Wrasling and thrashing was heard for the good part of an hour while the children and I entangled ourselves in comfort and prayer.

A loud banging gave notice that the commander general was trapped and needed the troops to rescue and cover him during his retreat and surrender. He relayed to us the grim details that not only had the squirrels made a mess of the attic they had brought in tree limbs and a BBQ for their MAN CAVE soon to be full of little squirrelings in the spring. The tragic news was that in order to do this they had chewed holes right through our lovely roof! He could see the sky and that meant that we had moisture problems we did not yet know about!

UGH!

So back to the supply depot went our fearless and brave commander general. He got flashing, he got nails, he got sticky stuff, and he got other stuff. From the neighbors he borrowed a realllllllly tall ladder. Now it is dusk (because each trip to the depot uses up more than an hour, that is just a fact of nature) and it is getting cold and he has to ascend the tallest ladder known to man. Up he goes, one rung at a time until the ladder is shaking like a leaf and I shout into his ear that he's doing a great job and he's being very brave, he's got 39 more rungs to go!

Of course when he gets up there the flashing needs to be cut and it is in a long roll and then the tin snips are not left handed tin snips to be used for horizontal cuts at high altitudes. The wind has picked up a bit making his fingers go numb and the ladder very cold. The nails won't grab onto anything and the sticky stuff won't come out of the tube to play, probably afraid of frost bite. He gets the holes patched well enough that if we got weather overnight it would hold and the squirrels would be kept out for the moment.

That night my dear commander general had a fitful night’s sleep in which he dreamt that he was on the top of a roof surrounded by squirrels brandishing guns. When he shared it with all of us in the morning he got an outpouring of love and support for his bravery, heroism and courage.

Epilogue:
We have the attic laced with fox urine, a natural predator to the squirrel, and a strobe light (for their disco dance floor) to turn on when we hear them attempting a re-entry maneuver. Outside the roof line is fortified with tin flashing glued and nailed down, along with more of the fox urine. We drew the line at the razor barbed wire; we didn't think the neighbors would quite understand where we are coming from. Overall, these are stopgap measures to see us through the winter and get us to spring and better weather to get the roof redone completely - oh joy!