Intruder

Six-thirty-six p.m. I'm in the living room setting up the new DVD recorder while Angie plays with various packages of DVDs. Every once in a while I hear a distinct noise, like the crackling of a hard plastic wrapper, but sharper. I'm sure it's not Angie, even though some of the DVDs she's playing with have such a wrapper on them. I check the various downstairs rooms of the house -- bedroom, bathroom, kitchen -- to see what could be making the noise, but find nothing. Unsatisfied, I return to the task of figuring out how the electronic components are connected to the TV and what I have to do to add this new DVD recorder to the mess. But again, there's that sound, and it's definitely coming from the kitchen. This time, when I enter, I see him. He's trying to escape through the screen window, but I've scared him into a panic, and now he's using his sharp claws to scramble up and down the screen, chattering the whole time. I turn to block the kitchen off with the safety gate, telling Angie, "You can't come in just yet, until I get this squirrel out of here." By the time I turn around again, the noise has stopped and the squirrel is nowhere in sight. I inch my way over to the window, unsure if he managed to escape or if he's just found a very clever hiding spot. After peeking into every possible hiding place I can think of, I examine the screen and find a three inch hole in the bottom corner. It seems he left the same way he entered. I survey the kitchen; nothing is amiss, and all of the foodstuffs are in tact. I close the glass window over the screen. There will be no more intruders tonight.