A sign that we really should get a screen door. And a new dog.

The weather is so nice that I've been opening the back patio door each afternoon. The only problem with this scenario is that we don't have a screen door. It's on my list of things to buy and do, but as you all know that list is long and few things actually get done. I should start adding "sit on your ass all day" or "go to the bathroom an unbelievable amount of times"  to my lists so I could at least check something off each day.

But anyway.

This afternoon I was writing my grocery lists for next week when the dog came bolting out of nowhere to hide behind me. Usually Mya is afraid because of something Oliver is doing/did to her, but Oliver was asleep and I doubted he was the perpetrator this time.

I shoved the dog off of me and went back to my lists until I heard a noise over by the garbage can. I looked up and saw a beady-eyed  squirrel staring at me, just over the threshold of our house. I've watched a lot of Animal Planet in my day, and I know that it was a big squirrel. We're talking a huge, fat, neighborhood-fed squirrel that knows no fear. It was Squirrelzilla, and it was standing right in our dining room.

Being the NPR listening family that we are, we've heard several stories about the dangers of rodent encounters. In particular, we've heard a This American Life story about a squirrel being loosed inside somebody's home and causing great damage and embarrassment several times. I would not allow us to become an NPR statistic like that one.

From the look in his eye, this squirrel knew that I knew it had the upper hand. It was small, maneuverable, and unpredictable. I am.... not.  It was taunting me, you guys. It wanted to harass me. I knew something had to be done about it, and since the dumb dog was even more afraid than I was, I had to man up and attack this thing wild west style, guns ablazing.

For a while, the squirrel and I regarded each other. We needed to size each other up. The squirrel would have been excellent in a staring contest.  It was quite intimidating. I am sure the squirrel was inspecting the peanut crumbs on my shirt and finding me quite delicious looking. It was an intense stand off before battle.

Thinking of nothing better to do, I grabbed the Mr. Potato Head body sitting next to me and chucked it at the squirrel. It ran out the door and off of our deck. I haven't seen it since. The end.

(What, you thought that was an anti-climactic ending?)