The Great White Hunter

It's a peaceful morning. I'm grading my online classes' quizzes, and Jeremy's off to take a quick nap. The cat and both dogs are sleeping. The next thing I know, Jeremy's charging back into the kitchen.

"Where's a big piece of wood?" He asks, as he peers into the kitchen closets. I just stare at him.
"What are you doing? I thought you were taking a nap?"
"There's a huge critter above the bathroom!" He exclaims, as he continues his rampage through the kitchen. "Aha!" He deftly wields a four foot long piece of wood like a club and marches back to the bedroom.

Thud! Thud, thud! Bang, thud, whomp! So much for the peaceful morning. This continues for a good five minutes, then I watch as he scrambles up the stairs, and listen to about 10 minutes more thudding coming from the attic off the upstairs bathroom.

Storming down the stairs into the kitchen, I can't help but laugh at him. He's wearing jammy pants, a t-shirt, his hair is sprouting all over the place, there's a determined look on his face, and his still swinging the wood around like a club--a pajama vigilante.

"What! Why are you laughing at me?" I can't help myself and just keep laughing.
"You look hilarious (probably not the best thing to say to a "club" swinging husband). And the way you're charging after a little critter just adds to it."
"It's not little!" He exclaims in exaggerated outrage. "It's a huge squirrel!"
"Did you get it?" I asked.
Jeremy hesitates, looks a little sheepish, then says "No." I start laughing again. "It's not funny! The thing was huge! And it was clinging to the screen just tugging at it, trying to get out."
"So," I ask, really just wanting to torment him further, "you've armed yourself, barreled through the house, charged after a squirrel, yet the squirrel is still in the attic?"
"He was stuck back in the little corner of the attic! I would have had to scrunch myself up into a little ball to get back there!" He demonstrates the scrunching, but the way he moves his arms up to his chest sort of make him look like a squirrel. I start laughing again. "And what would you have done?" He asks me pointedly.

I know what I would have done. I would have listened to the critter, decided risking my own life (okay, so a squirrel, cat, raccoon--whatever it might have been--isn't really deadly, but. . .) was not worth it, then just listened to it scrambling through the attic. Even if I had gone into the attic, I would have just stared at it, backed out, and closed the door. At some point, it would have stopped making noises, so I could just pretend that it wasn't there. But, that wasn't the point, and I didn't bother telling Jeremy what my plan of action would have been. No sense giving him ammunition. That, and he pretty much knows what I would have done anyway.

"Besides, the thing was so loud! I'm laying there in bed, my head covered, and I can still hear it! I look over at Audrey and she's just laying there, sleeping, not even paying any attention. Some hunting dogs we have." I looked down at Audrey, who had vacated the bed as soon as Jeremy started thudding around. Apparently, Jeremy had disturbed her sleep, so she left the bedroom and was now sleeping next to my feet. We are so well protected--if a cat army decides to take over our house.

Jeremy's still grumbling because he's figured out how the squirrel got into the house. His fault of course, because when he started tearing out the plumbing to redo it, he left a huge vent open, big enough for the squirrel to get in.

By this point he's muttering something about a pellet gun, annoyed that we don't have one.
"We just have the little 22," I said to him, "but I'm pretty sure that's not a good idea."
"Yeah, that would be great, since it'd be aimed right at the courthouse. We need a pellet gun! Why don't we have one?" Jeremy's still grumbling about this as he heads back to bed for a second attempt at a nap. I have a feeling we're going to end up with a pellet gun before long. This made me giggle again, as I imagined Jeremy, decked out in safari clothes, stalking through the house with a pellet gun hunting squirrels. Then I groaned, imagining mounted squirrel heads flanking our hallway walls.