Hysterical. I should say hysteria. That was the state of mind in which the Little Woman came through the door yesterday evening.
Me: What’s wrong? What happened? Why are you crying? Did something happen at work?
Little Woman drops purse and laptop bag in the middle of the floor and walks over to the wine, pours a huge glass and with tears streaming down her face asks, “Can we go to the back porch? I need to smoke.”
So we go straight to the back porch.
Me: What? Did something happen at work? Did you get in a wreck? WHAT?!!
LW: Well…
Me: This is torture. Please, no build-up, no wind-up; please, don’t make me go through this, just tell me.
LW: I didn’t kill it.
Me: Good. Kill what?
LW: The squirrel.
Me: What? You killed a squirrel?
LW: No, I didn’t kill it I told you.
Me: Then who did?
LW: I don’t know.
Me: Why are you crying? Okay, I’m going back in if you don’t get to the point.
The Little Woman starts the waterworks again. I can’t leave her this way.
Sidebar: The Little Woman is a mental health therapist by profession and an animal rescue person by nature. She drives a Honda Fit with the back loaded with boxes and bags of dog food, cat food, leashes, bowls, you name it. When she sees a stray or injured animal, she’s on it like an EMT Paramedic. She is on the rescue.
The Story: I’ll cut through the red tape and get to the point. I didn’t actually hear the whole story until this morning. Apparently, she found a squirrel holding its nose with both front squirrel paws and bleeding from the mouth. She picked it up and put it in a box and then put the box in her car. When she came back to look, the squirrel apparently climbed out of the box and somehow wedged itself between the driver’s seat brackets and the console. She could see the poor little thing was still breathing satisfied that at least it was protected from the local cats. After work, she couldn’t get it dislodged from between the console and seat brackets and then pulled the seat back.
At this point I will spare you the gory details.
Me: Where is it?
LW: (Really hysterical at this point) On top of the trash can in a garbage bag.
Me: Do I have to clean blood from the upholstery?
LW: Maybe.
Me: I’ll take care of the body. I’ll clean up the mess. No one will ever know it happened.
This one is for the books.
Awww. Poor squirrel. That’s too bad. Only … from now on, when you want to ‘get her goat’, you can tell her it’s a good thing she didn’t find Bambi.
Aww, poor Little Woman. Not a good save the animals day for her.