Apparently, it ain't just rabbits.

We had an injured squirrel in our neighborhood, and I attempted to catch it in one of those Certified Humane Box Traps so I could haul it off to the wild animal clinic near here. Unfortunately, the first squirrel I got was perfectly healthy, and about a 10.5 on the Pissed Off scale. It really wanted a piece of me as I picked up the cage, and it was no longer cute at all. Of course, the fact that I had spray-painted his ass fluorescent green to distinguish it for future reference may have had something to do with that.

I had to let it out, dammit. My son retreated to the shed roof, and I stepped as far back as I could to open the cage, hoping the squirrel was more interested in bugging out than eating me. He shot out of the cage, away from me (fortunately) and straight up to the shed roof at my son (unfortunately). Turns out he was just taking the closest route to the house roof, but my son didn't know that. More therapy I'm going to have to pay for someday.

I did catch the injured squirrel later, but it died on the way to the clinic. Ever since, my van has a horrible chittering noise coming from behind the dashboard. I may have the only automobile haunted by a squirrel.