Firrel in the fireplace

When our son was growing up, he could not pronounce his ‘sp’ or ‘sq’ sounds at all, and instead substituted the ‘f’ sound for each of them.  So, Sprite became Frite, spoon became foon, and squirrel became firrel.  As he was sitting on the couch one day, he looked up and said “Hey Mom, there’s a firrel in the fireplace.”  Our son talks a lot, so my wife basically said “mm hmm” and kept on doing what she was doing.  A few minutes later, he repeated himself.  ”Mom, there is a firell in the fireplace!”  This time my wife looked up to see a cute furry rodent peering at them from behind the glass of our gas fireplace.  Brief panic ensued as we all tried to figure out how we would get this creature not only out of the fireplace but out of our house.  A quick check online revealed that we had two choices:  call an animal removal service or let the squirrel expire of natural causes.  Since the animal removal service cost a lot of money ( at the time ), we decided to let things go for a day or two and see what would happen.

The next day, we came downstairs to find that not only had our friendly little squirrel not expired, but he had invited a friend to join the party.  We now had two “firrels in the fireplace.”  Now I officially started to get upset.  It was one thing to have a single squirrel invading our home, but how dare they try to set up a camp!   We again entertained the idea of calling the pest service, and again decided it was too much money.  I then got the first of what would prove to be a series of brilliant ideas.  I told my wife “Let’s just turn on the fireplace and cook them!”  Having grown up in a very small town and been a serious pyromaniac, I still hold firmly to the belief that there are very few problems that a fire cannot solve.  My wife looked at me with one of those “I can’t believe I am married to you” kind of looks and promptly told me there was no way she was going to have the smell of burnt squirrel permeating our house for the next week.  It was out of the question.

Brilliant idea number two quickly followed.  If I could not have my way with burning them alive, I decided that they would meet their fate at the end of the spear.  I retrieved a short broom from the closet, went to the kitchen and got a knife and proceeded to lash the knife to the end of the broomstick with duct tape.  I imagined myself a Revolutionary War soldier, fixing my bayonet to skewer the enemy.  I felt invincible, and was sure that victory was within my grasp.  It turns out that squirrels are really, really quick, something I did not fully appreciate until I tried the seemingly simple task of stabbing these critters.  Between trying to make sure I did not hit the gas line and working around the logs, I never really came close.  I walked away inconsolable.

Another day went by, and by this time a third squirrel had dropped into the house.  Fortunately, the first one had in fact died of natural causes, so we were still dealing with just two live invaders.  I looked to the oracle of all things, Google, to try and come up with a solution.  I then read on some animal protection site that squirrels would in fact just run out of the house if you opened your door, darkened the rest of the house, and walled off all other exits.  This seemed like a reasonable path forward, but I was still skittish about simply turning them loose in the house.  We closed all the blinds and other doors, walled off the stairs, opened the front door and hoped for the best.  I figured that if I put a giant Rubbermaid container over the opening, they would just run in there and I would carry them outside.  Again, turns out squirrels are a lot faster than I give them credit for.  I opened the doors to the fireplace, put the container over the door and started poking around to root them out.  Five seconds later, my wife ( who had taken our kids out into the street ) screamed a blood-curdling scream from the perimeter.  ”One just came out!”  Really?  I hadn’t even seen or heard it.  That was strange.  Looking into the fireplace again, I swallowed hard.  There were no more live squirrels in the fireplace, but only one had made its way out.  That meant my greatest fears had been realized.  We had a squirrel in our house running free.  Visions of this evil creature biting my kids in the neck as they slept and drinking their blood went through my head as I, along with my neighbor who had volunteered to help, tried to figure out what to do next.

We looked under all of the furniture, hoping to see our new friend and persuade him to leave.  It was not meant to be.  He was nowhere to be found.  We then started pulling furniture away from the wall and eventually found him clinging to the back of our couch, looking about as terrified as we were.  As we took a step toward him, he shot out from the back of the couch and took off out the door.  Phew.  Reason had carried the day, and the problem was over.  Except….

There was a squirrel lurking outside our front steps, peering INTO the house.  We came to the conclusion that somehow a nest had formed in our chimney and at some point had collapsed.  This squirrel had the look of a very worried mother wanting to know where the rest of the family was.  I grabbed the broom and got it away from our house, delivering the bad news that the rest of her family was dead as I went.  I also let this mother squirrel know in an expletive-filled tirade that her family was no longer welcome in my house.  As I was doing this, one of the other squirrels was just sort of standing in the street, staring at my son.  He thought he was cute, and walked over to him.  A squirrel at this point should run away.  However, this squirrel was going nowhere.  My wife ran over, grabbed my son, and whisked him away to safety.

We called the fireplace man the next day and had a new cap on our fireplace within a few days.  It turns out our old one had rusted through, and the squirrels had made themselves a nice little home between the liner and the outside.  At some point, the party had just gotten too large and they had fallen from the chimney into our peaceful abode.   My daughter helped me give the dead squirrel a proper funeral beneath the leaf pile in our back yard.

We had a new appreciation for the squirrel and their ability to outwit, outlast and outplay.