We know you're up there...

We have creatures living in our attic. We're not sure what they are, but we know they like to chew things... because we can HEAR THEM chewing in the walls, scurrying about, wreaking havoc. We're not fond of these creatures.

Last summer, we called an animal removal place and they sent over a guy who placed a trap on our roof. At that point, we thought we were dealing with squirrels. The removal guy said that for one flat fee, he would remove an unlimited number of animals. Great! Everyone else was charging per animal, so this seemed very reasonable. Well, after our $250.00 squirrel was captured, we hoped for the best.

Flash forward to the recent past...(cue the wavy lines and tinkly music)
Laying in bed on a Sunday morning...
Me: (stiffening at the recognizable sound) Do you hear that?

Jeff: (groaning) Yes.

Me: Crap.

We've been talking about how we should really get up into the attic to investigate, but, gosh darn it, things always seem to come up that would be much more fun, like ANYTHING! So this past weekend when my dear, sweet sister and her affable and capable boyfriend were visiting my parents, we convinced him to come help Jeff deal with this problem in exchange for food. Because he's in college and food is always welcome, he agreed.

Mom, Mel, and I took off for IKEA (the happiest place on earth) and left Jeff and Hans (not his real name ;) ) to take of the problem. Their plan: go buy a million glue traps and spread them out all over the attic. We called at regular intervals to check on the progress. Each time, Jeff answered a little out of breath and assured me of their progress. It was hot, this was hard, yeah, they've seen lots of evidence of some sort of creature, it was difficult work, but yeah, they were really working hard, etc... I was even feeling a little guilty...we had been gone for about 4 or so hours and they had been working in the sweltering attic all afternoon...

We got home and they had finished the job. As I was showing Jeff my latest treasures from IKEA, he made his confession. Here's a dramatization of the account.

(cue wavy lines and tinkly music)
Jeff: Hey Hans, as long as we're at Wal-Mart getting these traps, let's go check out the bb guns.

Hans: Okay.

Jeff: (holding a bb gun in his hands looking a lot like that kid in A Christmas Story) Cooooooooooooooollllll....

Hans: (who is a very capable outdoorsman who provided this year's Thanksgiving main course by killing it with his bare hands) Yeah, it's cool.

Jeff: (who had a somewhat sheltered childhood...indoors) You know, this could come in handy. I mean, when we catch the mice or rats or whatever, we can't just let them stay on the glue sheet until they die. It would be much more humane to get it over with right away. Plus, IT WOULD BE SO COOL TO SHOOT THINGS!

Jeff buys the bb gun. They spread the traps and are finished in a cool 1 hour flat.

Jeff: (with a slight dampness in his eyes, cradling his bb gun in his arms) Hans, in this moment, I have finally fulfilled my childhood dream. (a deep sigh of happiness) Let's shoot stuff.

Hans: Cool.

So, they opened the sliding door to the back patio in the backyard, lined up 4 Coke cans and shot them to pieces for the next 3 hours...

We still haven't caught anything. But Jeff can hit the "C" in Coke with amazing precision.