There's A Chipmunk Over There

I recently celebrated a birthday. My birthday day rocked. My birthday night...not so much. Two, count 'em two completely unrelated events that kept us up until the wee hours of the morning.

To understand part of the story, you have to know something of the geography of our house. My bedroom resides all the way down on the right end. I sleep next to an outside wall, on the other side of which there's a garden, a tree, birdbath, window wells, all the stuff you normally find in a side yard. The inside of our house, with the the exception of both ends where there are bedrooms, is open concept. The living room is open to the kitchen and dining room, and takes up the middle third of the front of the house.

Whew. Now that that's out of the way.

Last night I heard bump from outside my bedroom window. Sounds like someone tripped over the short garden fence or a window well cover. I think "squirrel" and forget about it. This is about 11:40, maybe. Around 12:25, I hear footsteps outside my room (I figure it's a parent), and then something from the main body of the house, it sounds like someone's trying to rattle our patio door against the block in the track, or maybe pry open a window. My curiousity piqued, I get out of bed, consider and then discard the idea of taking a knife with me (it was a weird noise, ok?), and stumble out into the hall.

My mom's out in the hall, looking confused. She got up AFTER the rattle (who's footsteps were those?) and thinks there might be someone in the house. One person hearing something suspicious is understandable - houses settle. Two people hearing it is not coincidence. This coupled with the sound like someone tripping outside my window (I explained this to her) leads me to believe we have either a home invader or a prowler on the premises. I go back to my room, briefly consider the advantages of a carbine against a pistol, and retrieve my 9mm from under my bed. Suitably armed, I return to the hallway, tell my mom to wake my dad, and watch the darkened rest of the house from the back of the hall. It's cold in the house, I'm wearing only athletic shorts, my heart sounds like a dang jackhammer, and I'm wondering how fast someone can get down the hall from the kitchen and if I'll get enough time to put a round in the chamber, aim, and find it within myself to fire.

My dad gets up, takes my gun and does a walkthrough of the house, turning lights on and examining the outdoors as he goes. All the doors and windows are locked, no signs of entry. That's good. From there he checks the basement, retrieves my freaked-out brother from his basement bedroom, and once we've made sure the house is secure, we all return our various weapons to their places of origin, and go back to bed, my brother choosing to sleep upstairs in his old bed in my room.

It's now about 12:45, and the fun is just beginning.

We have two birds. A parrot lives in front of the patio door in our kitchen. A 900 year old finch resides in a cage on a chest in front of the living room window.

At about 12:50, we hear the parrot freaking out. My mom and my dad get up to comfort him, and me and my brother follow.The parrot appears to be fine. My brother looks over by the finch and utters those infamous words "There's a chipmunk over there."

Yeah. The absolute LAST thing you want to hear at 1 in the morning.

This critter ain't a chipmunk. It's about the size of a rat, with a flat bushy tail as long as itself, big black bug eyes, and an angelic face, sort of like a squirrel/chipmunk/possum cross. Everyone's since commented that it looks like something out of Australia. He's sitting on the finch's cage. At our slightest movement, he transfers himself about 3 feet over and 3 feet up to the top of a potted plant. We grab towels, a spatula, and a laundry bucket and head into the living room. He jumps another few feet into the air, and proceeds to do upside-down hand-over-hand along the curtain rod, then runs the length of the curtain back to the plant he came from. By this time we've shoved towels under all the doors in the house, opened the front door, and are considering plans to remove the offending house-guest.

Using a long piece of wood, my brother pushes the plant-box over to the now open front door. From there, my dad, shielding himself with the laundry bucket, chases the animal down the tree with the spatula, and out into the yard.

We all got to bed around 1:30.The happenings with the animal are all funny in retrospect (The phrase "There's a chipmunk over there" will be a punchline for years to come, and we've got several photos of the furry guest that are quite cute) but at the time it was most aggravating.

Our theory is someone tried to break in, and then while we were clearing the house, we woke up the critter that had been come in (unknown to the rest of us) earlier in the day and had been napping under the couch. We know the 2 events were not connected because the noises we heard that we attribute to a human were A)Outside and B)Not capable of being made by a critter of the small four-legged variety.

This is just great - this is the second time in a year that someone's tried to break in.