Flying Squirrel!!!

Picture this: You come home from youth group at church, are only home for about five minutes, during which time your sister goes to her room, when suddenly you hear a blood-curdling shriek emanating from her bedroom.

Your parents leap up and yell, "What's wrong?", as expected, and already begin their journey to either cure the cause of the scream, or give a cause to scream, when the hysterical reply is heard.

"There's a flying squirrel in my bedroom!"

Welcome to my last Wednesday night.

Now, I can probably guess what you're thinking, or at least part of it. Number 1: you're thinking, "WOW! A flying squirrel??? AWESOME! I want to see one!" Number 2: (this one varies depending on gender and personality) you're thinking, "Eek, that stinks to find a furry little animal running around in your bedroom. But, wow! A flying squirrel!" Number 3: "How did she know what a flying squirrel looks like? Did it fly? Wow, a flying squirrel!" And Number 4: "What happened? A flying squirrel!"

Well, I can answer those questions/thoughts.

Before I start, I should probably mention that I wanted to post about this earlier but did not get the time until today.

First of all, I will say that although for a very long time I wanted to see a flying squirrel, I have come to not particularly enjoy seeing them. This is due to the fact that we have had a flying squirrel infestation in our house, and the times I would see them would be when I would go down to the basement to use the computer, hear a little scratching noise and turn around to see a squirrel peeking out of a little hole in the ceiling. Or when I would open the basement door and see one standing on the second-to-top stair staring at me. Or when they were running sideways on the giant beam going across our basement. Or when they'd be running around the garage. Or when...

You get the picture.

Needless to say, I came not to enjoy seeing their cute little face or their cool gliding skills. (I would love to see one in the wild, but that's nearly impossible since they're nocturnal and very good at blending in with their surroundings) And so, when we finally fixed the problem and closed off the hole that it seemed they were coming in from, we thought we had gotten rid of them.

Well, we almost did.

This one little bugger managed to find his way in somehow, and make it to the girls' room. And so, when my sister walked in and turned on the lights, there was a little furry creature staring at her (which she knew to be a flying squirrel since she had seen her share of them). To quote her upon this discovery:

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!"

Anyway, when we learned of the problem, Andrew, my dad, and I were dispatched to remove the little guy. So, we shut the door, cutting off his only escape route, got a broom and a walking stick and a wastebasket, and started chasing the poor stinker around, trying to catch him. We thought we'd lost him, and I left my dad and my brother to try to figure out where he'd come from/escaped to, when I heard the shout, "We found 'im!" and hubbub from behind the closed door. Thus, I did not see Andrew actually rustle him out of the *ahem* big mess under my sister's bed with the walking stick and somehow catch him with the wastebasket in the other hand, but that's what I'm told, and since the squirrel was in the wastebasket, trapped under something they put on top to keep him from climbing out, I have to give Andrew credit for having lightning reflexes.

So, my mom drove Andrew, still holding the wastebasket with its rodent cargo, 7 miles out to be dumped off in some woods somewhere.

My sisters are still sleeping in the family room.