...About Chipmunks

Got up early Sunday morning. One of those where you wake up, lay there for several minutes and realize you're done. You could enjoy dozing back into the world of warm covers, but, you're done. It ain't gonna happen. So you get up and toddle off to the kitchen and some coffee. Generally, my wife gets up before I do. She was in the office on the computer. I was on the couch watching through Headline News. I get up to get another cup of coffee... then I hear it. *chikachikachikachikachika*  What in the world was that???   *chikachikachikachikachika*   What IS that???  *chikachikachikachikachika* 
About that time, my wife was coming into the kitchen. I'm in the hall.  "Honey, come here!"  She comes into the hall.  "Sshhh, Listen............ "   *chikachikachikachikachika*  "Hear it????"  *chikachikachikachikachika*  If you could have this vision of my wife and I standing in the hall, looking at the ceiling and rotating our heads like a lighthouse, eyes squinted to hear better........  *chikachikachikachikachikachikachikachikachikachika*   She says, "Are you kidding me!!!!??  It's damn squirrels... or something!!!!"  I had pretty much accepted "squirrels" - and would've done fine with "chipmunks."  But I hadn't really thought much about the possibility of anything that might be classified as "or something."  What might that be? A bat? A bird?  What if it's Sasquatch??!! *chikachikachikachikachika*  Whatever it is - it has to go!  *chikachikachikachikachika*  From one end of the house to the other, and we, like crazy people, running along underneath it trying to... what? What the hell were we going to do? We are in the house, it/they/he is in the attic. *chikachikachikachikachika*

We went outside and determined they - cause by now we've decided there must be easily 200 of them - are running along the length of the house along the vinyl siding-covered soffets. *chikachikachikachikachika*  "Over here!"  *chikachikachikachikachika*  Smart me, right? I take the handle of the rake (left there from another blog!) and poke the soffet where they're sitting. I suppose I think I'm going to make them disappear by poking them with a rake handle. BONK! *chikachikachikachikachika*  BONK!  *chikachikachikachikachika*  NOW I'm just herding cats.  BONK!  *chikachikachikachikachika*  And mind you, they are going nowhere NEAR any opening through which they can leave! *chikachikachikachikachika*chikachikachikachikachika*

Our large patio has a roof over it that is built onto the house. A full gable that has storage all above the ceiling. Being connected to the house, with lights and ceiling fans mounted to it, there is a hole where wiring and they have come from the house out over the patio. The access is a pull-down panel with one of those folding wood ladders mounted to it.  Being intelligent humans, we decide to open that and look up in there. She decides she's going. She goes up the ladder, pokes her head around, and THERE THEY ARE!  Three chipmunks. One over there, and two over there! *chikachikachikachikachika*  "Quick! Gimme the BB gun!"  I don't really know why, but I gave it to her.  POP! *bink  bink  bink* (Ricocheting!)  *chikachikachikachikachika*  POP!  bink  bink  bink*  *chikachikachikachikachika*  I swear, we are something out of the black & white silent movies!  POP!  *bink  bink  bink*  *chikachikachikachikachika* 

Now remember, my wife is no pansey - not at all. She is a farm girl raised in way upstate New York and she ran large horse farms for many years. She's the kind who will pick up a dead roach with her fingers to put it in the trash... not me. That kinda thing gives me the heebie-jeebies just thinking about it. I can't stand anything with more than 2 legs. I'm not a girly-man. I just don't particularly cotton to things what crawl around and crap on your food. But... I digress!

Well, we chased the damn things around for the better part of 2 hours, and made about as much positive progress as I made with the rake handle. *chikachikachikachikachika*   After a while we decided we would leave the access panel open and the ladder down, and if they didn't decide to chika-chika down that ladder and leave, the next day was the pest control guy.

Now, all of that is not the funny part. Here it comes...

Later that afternoon, my wife was sitting on the patio talking on the phone. I was in the kitchen at the table, typing on my laptop. She's *chikachikachikachikachika*  telling Kay about the chipmunks and the aggravation of *chikachikachikachikachika* having to listen to that all day. *chikachikachikachikachika*  I can only begin to imagine the horror in that chipmunk's mind when he hauled ass across that floor once again - and there suddenly was NO FLOOR!  Weeehooo!!  Out that access panel he flew like Rocky the Flying Squirrel - headed RIGHT AT MY WIFE!!  Cheley (pronounced Shellie) screamed like a 6 year old and did one of those dances like she's either gotta pee, or something's flying at her face!!  That little dude hit the floor right at her feet, looked her in the eyes, I think he pee'd a little, and ran like hell to the other end of the patio!  By that time I was out the door and we wrangled him out the patio door into the yard. She said she was looking at the opening when he popped out, and that he came at her with this terrified look on his face - arms stretched out wide, mouth open, and eyes as big as Double-Stuff Oreo cookies!

Now I don't know if chipmunks have little two-way radios, or telepathy, or what. But I DO know this - we haven't heard the FIRST sound since! 

My wife and her screaming dance are available for birthday parties and bar-mitzvahs.

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