Rocky the Flying Squirrel

Josie the cat was flying around in the middle of the night (according to Katy) and when we woke up this morning Katy casually said, "I think Josie was chasing a critter last night." To which Mike said, "I don't want to talk about it."

About 9 a.m. Katy called Mike into the kitchen and laughingly pointed out that we had a flying squirrel sitting on the window sill in the kitchen enjoying the decorative ear of dried corn. Mike suggested calling the police or the fire department or both. Katy offered to shoot the critter but since Mike doesn't know where the guns are in the house, and doesnt' want to know, he counseled against it. He cautiously approached the intruder with a broom to shoo him out the kitchen door. Instead, Rocky flew into the middle of the kitchen, ran underneath the closed door into the rest of the house and disappeared. Mike called the Holiday Inn in Danbury but they had no vacancies. Picture this, Katy giddily continuing to work in her office and Mike, hyper-vigilant in his office/dining room, scanning the room for impending doom.
Then once again, strange sounds from the kitchen. Mike heard kernals of dried corn falling to the floor. There was the varmint munching on the dried corn. But this time, aha! We planned for this. Katy barred the door (get it) to the rest of the house by shoring up the doorway from the kitchen to the rest of the house. We opened the back and front doors from the kitchen and Mike stalked the intruder with the broom.

We got him out after he knocked over some decorative glass, a lamp, scared Mike to near-cardiac-arrest and finally scampered out the front kitchen door. Still, we are having a biologist who specializes in protecting people like us take out all the other varmints in our walls and ceilings (instead of having retirement funds) so Mike can, again, sleep at night. Meanwhile, Josie had a very comfortable day.