Rocky, no Bullwinkle

We had some unexpected visitors over the holidays. Our dear friends Bob and Judy decided to drive up and stay with us over New Year's eve, putting an end to the tag line "we never see each other anymore" that had come to close every telephone conversation with them.

During one lull in the evening's conversation, Bob glanced into a corner and asked "was that a cat?" No, we replied, both cats were sleeping upstairs. "I swore I saw something," he continued, "you don't still have Guinea Pigs, do you?" Long gone, we replied, just dogs, cats, and us, all accounted for. "Then, what's that?" he said, pointing to a cute brownish-gray furry creature with big eyes now quite visibly perched on top of an arm chair by the window. Jaws dropped; Elissa, our resident naturalist, announced "oh, that's a flying squirrel. Northern, I think."

A flying squirrel. In the living room. INSIDE the living room. Chaos ensued.

The best way to describe the next five minutes would be to direct you to the nearest video rental store, way in the back corner where they keep the pile of old black-and-white movies. Pick up a "Keystone Cops," anything by Harold Lloyd, or in a pinch an early Charlie Chaplin. Fast-forward in about ten minutes and hit 'play' and you'll get the idea -- three guys, armed with waste baskets and rolled up newspapers, trying to scoop up a four inch scurrying ball of fur running up the curtains, between our legs, through the potted plants, and then behind the furniture. The ladies sat back and laughed at our incompetence, occasionally cheering us on with a hearty "be careful not to hurt him!"

Finally, the squirrel took a time out behind the radiator, and we fell back to regroup. We realized that catching the squirrrel wasn't really the goal, but only a step on the way towards getting him outside. So, we decided to eliminate the (utter fiasco) of the interim step, and go straight for the goal. We propped the front door wide open and, armed with brooms and newspapers, proceeded to prod, steer, and direct the furry beast out of the living room and towards the door. Finally, it saw the opening and ran out into the darkness, finishing with a tremendous gliding leap into the bushes.

Laughing, we closed the door and settled back into our seats. "Good thing we got him out," said Bob, "ten more minutes of that and they would have revoked our credentials as predators."

The dogs watched the whole thing, amused by our antics but uninterested in joining the fun. The cats slept through the whole event, although one of them did make a big show of sniffing the squirrel's trail behind the furniture later in the evening, tail thrashing furiously. The big faker....

Lucky for us, our flying squirrel came alone. We really weren't in a mood to deal with a talking moose.