aminals

There are days when we - we being my roommate and I - sit in our living room and hear noises. My cat, she hears them too. She's a little more excited by them, she'll chase the noise around. We, we're a little more scared of it. One morning as I was getting ready for work I heard one of these noises, and I attributed it to my cat, clawing at something in the living room. She doesn't usually claw at things, so I was annoyed, and in my annoyance I just kept yelling to her "MIA!" "MMMIIIIIAAA!" "STOP IT". She didn't. So I went out to the living room to see exactly what she was doing. On my way out of my bedroom I saw Mia, curled up at the end of my bed. Then I heard that noise again. I apologized to Mia.

I believe it to be squirrels. In the roof. I think they have gotten in from outside and run around. They run all over, and even up and down the walls sometimes. I don't think they live in there all the time, because days go by without the noise.

One morning I was startled awake by the squirrel, in the roof above my bed. I sat there for an hour or so listening to him run all over my ceiling, up and down the wall between my room and the bathroom. I sat there envisioning this squirrel chewing in to my room from the ceiling. What will we do when that happens?!

Last week I was trying to get some things out of our storage crawl space. It's this enormous space off of the living room that we've jam-packed with boxes. I needed a few of them out of there. My roommate and I had agreed that we should go in there only when we are both home - for fear of bugs or whatnot. So I told her that I was going in there and she should come out if she hears screaming. And inside I went. I was way back, maneuvering things around to get at what I needed when I saw something disturbing. I started to scream a little, and I tried desperately to get out quickly - but I had barricaded myself in there pretty well. I come tumbling out and slammed the door and moved something in front of it. My roommate, meanwhile, is rushing out to the living room to see what disaster has happened. I'm sure she expected to see a swarm of spiders, or a line of ants, but she saw nothing. She asked what happened and I told her what I saw. All of my books, nibbled all down the sides. All of my manila envelopes with old class notes, chewed through. One of the reasons I love my roommate is that she and I think so much a like most of the time. She instantly freaked out and said, "What if the animal is still in there? What if it's in some of our boxes? What if it gets in here?" Exactly my point, hence the screaming and the running.

The next day a friend of mine came over to pull out my boxes. He was very nice to help, it was hot in that crawl space, and he's not short like me. He was under advisement that if an animal got out of there into our apartment he was responsible to remove it. Once all 6 of my boxes were pulled out I made him check them all for animals or bugs. He found none. So I sent him on his way!