Fucking Nuts

I lived with the rat noise for a while, far longer than I should have, I now realize. The rat noise is what I called the subtle skitter-scratchings I would occasionally hear in the attic of my home during the evening and night. I don’t even think it was rats, because somehow I think rats have a quieter nature: they are used to the scorn heaped on them, and therefore seek a lower profile. What this was, I am nearly positive, was a bad case of squirrels.

I first heard the noise late one night as I lay in bed reading. Hearing that sound was like having my entire body brushed with mildly charged electrical wires (although I don’t actually know what that feels like: no kinky sex here!). See, I had a night light (which I have heard has been linked to the occurrence of homosexuality in several studies) for an embarrassingly long time, (the first one to guess how long wins a prize! Also, if the studies are right, that means I am REALLY gay) so terror of the night is just a given with me. The gush of adrenaline into my circulatory system causing my heart to race and the sweat to ooze from my pores was not an unfamiliar phenomenon, although the fact that I was alone and potentially dealing with rabid vermin was a bit of a change up.

Now, when I am in a crowded room or situation, I usually can’t hear for shit. When I am by myself, and nothing is on, I can hear the click and hum of my digital video recorder. Instantly, I became all SOCOM command unit, ears aswivel, trying to locate the origin of the noise. Then, since opening the attic access and turning on the light (thereby encouraging a rodent attack) was sheer stupidity, I resorted to the time tested tactic of all people who live below noisy neighbors: I banged on the ceiling.

This was followed by a frenzy of apparent movement (I say apparent because I could not actually SEE the squirrels fleeing from mythumping; they could have been doing the old receding footsteps trick) and then silence. Smugly triumphant (“Heh. I didn’t even have to go into the attic.”), I put the occurrence in the behind me to simmer on the back burners of my subconscious. When it happened again, I assumed that this must be a new squirrel, one that simply didn’t get the memo vis a vis not clambering about in a decent person’s (or my) attic. More ceiling banging was committed, and again I sent my upstairs tenant packing. Until the next time. And the one after that. Surely even the dullest among you (although I doubt you know who you are; I have often found that stupid people don’t seem to know that they are stupid. I find it quite shocking, even though logically a lack of awareness goes glove in hand with the whole stupidity thing) are sensing the pattern: I basically have been whacking the ceiling for about 18 months now.

I knew, however much I wished to deny it, that I would have to come up with a real solution to this problem; it was only going to be so long before I ended up putting a hole in the plaster with the broom thereby opening the gates to rodent invasion, as it were. So, I asked my neighbor to come and sit in my living room while I climbed into my attic. This I did with safety in mind; I didn’t want them to be alerted to my potential distress by feeble cries or even worse, a funny smell. I waited until I hadn’t heard the noise for a couple of days and then made my ascent. There, I saw the damage done by the nut-loving little bastards. The insulation on the duct work from the kitchen to the exchange was all torn up. I found the (I hope the, as in singular) entrance they had been using to give me the nighttime willies: a hole in the screen in the vent over the carport. So, I had two repairs to make: fix it so the furry bastards couldn’t come back and then repair the damage they had done.

Dad helped me with the repairs, by which I mean he watched the Family Guy movie while I crawled around in the attic. Hey, he’s almost 60: he shouldn’t be doing that kind of shit anymore. Without too much trouble or injury, I was able to affect all the repairs and even travel to my first bear Halloween party. But more on that later.