The husband turned back up in one piece last night. No squipmunk guts trailing on his shoes. No sign of a struggle and no corpse has been found. I am thoroughly convinced it has all been a dream. I ask what happened. The conversation went like this:

“Did I dream that you found a squipmunk in pieces in our bedroom last night? If so, what is a squipmunk?”

“Let’s call it Armageddon,” he said. “I woke up to this screaming racket. At first I thought it was ice sliding off the roof (trust me, this sounds like a war zone), then I realized it was cat crazies times about 200, and along with the cat feet I heard squeaking. Took me about a minute to figure out what was going on. I knew it would not end well for the squeaker, but had visions of the duo leaping over our bed in their frenzy. I figured that wouldn’t be good for our marriage – or your heart.”

He can be a very smart man, but what he did next defies explanation. “What did you do,” I asked. “I waited for the squeaking to stop,” he said.

“Uh,” I said.  “How’d that work?”

“Not so well for either the squipmunk or me. Soon, the squeaking stopped, and I leapt out of bed to discover why, and the body was half under our bed behind the hope chest and the cat was still in full I’m gonna pounce and kill you mode. Pretty sure he thought about killing me (likely for all the times I attempted to starve him by leaving – gasp – two morsels of cat chow in his bowl).”

“What did you do?” I asked. “I turned on all the lights and hoped there weren’t more, than I tentatively approached what appeared to be a squipmunk body, and …

“HOLD ON!!” What exactly, is a squipmunk?”

“A creature too big to be a chipmunk and too small to be a squirrel, and its tail was all wrong. Maybe from the killing, but I think it started wrong…”

“Okay, go on…”

“So I approached the body with a piece of toilet paper (TOILET PAPER – I thought to myself – please tell me you had something more substantial than toilet paper for body removal), and I picked the thing up by the tail – with toilet paper – determining it was dead first, and flung it out the back door.”

“Uh,” I said. “Where’s the body now?”

“Likely a squipmunkcicle by now or it could be breakfast for a bear, moose or coyote. Plenty of those back there (waving his hands towards our expansive backyard).”

“Great,” I said. “Do you think there are more?”

“Well – that squeaking we’ve been hearing in the attic…I think it’s a squipmunk family. “

“How did they get out of the attic and into the main house?” I asked.

“I’ve no idea,” he answered, “but no worries, now we know how we’ll get rid of them.”
“How?” I asked.

“Killer cat!”

Great!  The  squipmunks -who I have been unwittingly harboring for nearly a year because – you know – it’s cold outside – are seeking their revenge.

On me.  In the middle of the night. With scurrying paws and an escape hatch into my bedroom. What if the cat is outside? What if the cat is asleep? What if the greyhounds decide to get in on the action?”

Based on the way things went the other night with only the husband even aware that this was going on, I think an exterminator would be a good solution. Anyone got a spare trap?