I was having a quiet July 4^th at home, getting some things done and puttering around.  I stepped out the door for a minute and when I came back in I noticed that my cat Spike was quite excited about something in back of the washer.  I figured a spider maybe, but in the back of my mind I admit to being a bit worried that maybe a mouse had gotten into the house.  So I pulled a few things out of the laundry closet so he’d have better access.

About 10 minutes later I saw a flash of gray fur and heard some very heavy pawsteps race across my living room rug.  It was so fast I really wasn’t sure what I had seen, so got up and looked at the patio door where Spike was now crouched in full panther mode.  I thought omg there’s a mouse.  Then, OMG that’s not a mouse it’s a chipmunk!!!!  The chipmunk went racing up the screen door and now he’s at eye level with me.  I quickly pushed the screen door open so that chippy was now squeezed in between the sliding screen door and the glass, and closed the glass sliding door.

Poor little chippy is now at the top of the screen, (with a very tiny stream of water coming from him down the screen) and I can see his little heart beating out of his furry white chest.  And there he stayed for the next 10 minutes.  He may have eventually found his way out, but my combination of empathy and selfishness (it was hot and I wanted to open the screen door again) won out.  I stepped out on the patio and shut the door so he wouldn’t get back in and race around the house. Again at eye level with him on the other side of the screen (have you seen that youtube video of the guinea pig that gives the wild look?) I grabbed both sides of the screen and jiggled it off the track, dropping it to the patio.  Little chippy dropped to the deck as well and raced around my enclosed patio.  Now he and I are stuck together on the patio, I don’t dare open the door, and he is still terrorized and racing for an escape.  He finally found the slight gap where the fence is attached to the wall and like the cartoon Theodore the Chipmunk he squeezed through, with his fat little butt stuck on one side, and then pop, he was gone.

There is no moral to this story, other than that I have a cat that is very happy and pleased with himself, and he’s wondering when mom is going to play with him and the fun new toy again!

This entry was posted on Sunday, July 5th, 2009 at 9:41 am and is filed under Miscellaneous. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.