Oh, Flying Squirrel

Last year, near the fall, I was sitting on our couch. Behind the couch is a window, which looks into the woods and our 'back yard', which really is just an area we put a fence around so the dogs could have a place to run around and do their doggy business. Behind my head, I hear a noise, so I tilt my head back and OH MY GOD THERE IS A BAT ON THE SCREEN CHRISSSSSS!

Our landlady and Chris decided I was crazy. It was certainly not a bat. That was not 'bat' behavior. So I said "What about a flying squirrel?" I mean, it was fuzzy, and had wing-like flaps. If it is not a bat, then it Has to be a flying squirrel. This suggestion was apparently funnier than the idea of it being a bat. SO I dropped it. Well! Guess who came to visit:



That's him alright. Sittin' atop our shower. God, was he cute. And he was in fact a Northern Flying Squirrel. I wanted to keep him forever and ever, even though he was a total party animal, and when we locked him in the bathroom over night - with the window open, hoping he would find his way out, he trashed the place.

Of course, he did not leave. In fact he camped out in a toiletry bag that I had not yet unpacked from our trip to Boston the weekend before. I didn't realize it until the next morning, when the cat is Very interested in the toiletry bag. The next thing I know there is squealing and thrashing and there is a squirrel up on top of the shower curtain again.

Later that day we came home to find the poor guy curled up and deceased: the cat's morning terrorizing had done him in. Over 24 hours we had become so attached to our little buddy that we buried him. Poor guy.