The squirrel behind the wall is driving me mad! It sounds as though he has an entire construction crew up there sawing and banging away. Any minute I expect to see him bust through the wall up near the ceiling in living room. Every morning as I sit here writing in my otherwise quiet house, I can hear him chewing away, and I imagine the hole getting bigger and bigger and the walls of my house getting thinner. Soon I expect there will be baby squirrels nestled down in a big pile of woodchips, and then where will it all end? (How many baby squirrels would likely be born at a time, anyway?) Maybe the whole extended squirrel family is inside my house, setting up separate apartments. It sounds that way sometimes. I don’t know if I’d feel better if we had an actual attic or not. My granddady used to just let them move in each winter, and I would hear what I thought was Squirrel Nutkin bowling above the ceiling of my bedroom.

But I keep remembering a show we saw one time—one of those funniest home videos or rescue 911 or some such—which showed how badly things can go. From what I can remember, this attractive single woman kept hearing something up in the attic and figured it was some kind of animal but was afraid to go up there herself, so she called the fire department—you know, the same fire department that rescues kittens from trees, at least on television. I think in real life they just tell you that if the kitten got up the tree by herself, she can get herself down the same way. Anyway, on this particular television show, sure enough the fire department came round and agreed to go up in the attic to take a look. As I recall, the woman was good looking, and the firefighter was one of those take-charge kind of men who prides himself in helping damsels in distress.

So the firefighter sets up a ladder and starts climbing confidently into the attic. When he gets near the top, the squirrel runs at him out of the dark attic, chattering wildly, and startles the man, who then falls backward onto the floor, breaking his leg. So now the woman still has a squirrel in the attic, plus an injured firefighter in her living room. I can’t remember exactly what happened next, but I think more firefighters showed up, determined not to let a squirrel get the best of them and embarrass them all in the process. They put a splint on their buddy’s leg and helped him over to the couch. Eventually, they managed to chase the squirrel out of the attic, who then proceeded to run madly around the living room and through the fire place, setting his tail on fire in the process. By then everyone was in a panic, especially the squirrel, who ran under the couch, which began to smoulder, so the firefighters carried the burning couch out into the yard and sprayed it with water. I can’t remember if the woman thanked them for getting the squirrel out of her attic or not.