The Charge Of The Chipmunk

This past weekend was Thanksgiving here in Canada, and we were all ready to head up to my sister's house for a lovely turkey dinner, but fate had other plans in store for us.

Seconds before we are about to leave there is a shriek "Charlie has a chipmunk".  Now we are used to our cat catching small prey, and for mice and birds I will make a half hearted attempt to rescue, and usually - in the case of the mice - get bitten for my trouble. For chipmunks however, I pull out all the stops. 

As we speed towards our rescue mission there is another panicked cry, this time from my husband, "Charlie is in the house, he has the chipmunk. It's alive!!!". Sure enough as we screech to a halt, there is the cat trotting through the dining room with a wiggling chipmunk hanging between his jaws. I don't know whether it was the noise or the sudden threat of everyone about to pounce on him, but Charlie dropped the chipmunk and in a flash it had legged it up the stairs and into Lindsay & Sid's bedroom.

Of all the rooms to choose it had to be that one Their room is a disaster area on a good day, but it had been at least a month or two since the last time there had been any serious clean up so it now looked like an episode from "Hoarders".  

Now most families practice fire drills with their children, but we are not "most families" and as such we practice "Wildlife Drills", as in the procedure to follow should we be invaded by a creature not deemed as a pet. This happens more times then I'd care to admit.

We all crowd into the bedroom and determine from the rustling in the far corner that the chipmunk has taken up residence under the bookshelf.  Lindsay is gingerly poking at it with a sheet of paper (??). Rob is yelling at me not to pick it up because they bite - who knew ? Sid and Grady race off in search of flashlights, while the dog charges up and down the hall barking loudly. Poor Zach stands in the midst of this chaos, totally gobsmacked. 

It would have been a lot easier to catch the chipmunk had I not had to traverse mounds of clothes and piles of Lego. I make my way cautiously to the bookshelf - has anyone noticed in these blogs it is always ME that gets to catch whatever needs catching ? - and start to pull it out from the wall. There is the poor little chipmunk scampering up the back of the shelf. I start to remove books and toss them aside with gay abandon in my effort to reach the rodent. I almost have it within my grasp when it darts through my hands and across the room. Lindsay screams and leaps on to her bed, which is no mean feat considering she has the top bunk. Suddenly, Rob lets out a shout and catapults through the air with a waste bin in his hands. 

He now has it trapped in the DVD stand. There is a small space at the bottom with no DVDs and it has gone to ground in there. Rob triumphantly throws the waste bin in front of the  stand and claims a successful catch. That is all very well and good, but now what is he going to do ? Somehow we have to persuade the chipmunk to go into the bin. I start to tilt the DVD stand, maybe not the smartest move under the circumstances as the DVDs cascade down on Rob's head. He mutters something impolite about my IQ, so I removed the DVDs and threw them into the closet instead. We finally get to the stage where we are able to lift up the DVD stand and invert it so the chipmunk has no choice but to slide into the bin. Rob slides a piece of cardboard over the top, and Voila ! one trapped chipmunk.

I elicit a promise from my husband that he will take it as far away as possible to give it a fighting chance, so Rob obliging trots off down the garden, and we get ready to leave again. Seconds later Grady dashes back screaming "Mayday! Mayday! The chipmunk is still in the house".

To be continued....