Saga of the Squirrel: Act 4

When we last encountered our squirrel it had been sighted in my office and was not witnessed leaving. I spent the entire day working in the office with no sense that I was being watched ...

Saga of the Squirrel: Act 4

Even though I left work at a normal hour that night, I did not go straight home and hence was not there when the phone rang with the fateful message. "The squirrel is still in your office.”

Damn.

I listened to the message and concluded that my somewhat timid colleague saw the fuzzy little creature and panicked, slamming my doors closed and trapping the poor guy. I was not a happy camper.

The next morning I came in to a closed, dark office. The window was open. I went into my colleague’s office and discussed the situation.

Apparently when my colleague entered my office to make a copy, he had encountered a jumping, spitting, furious squirrel and had paged for the custodian-on-duty but the
C.O.D had not appeared by the time my colleague had to leave. My office was left closed up over night. In the a.m., my colleague, the head Custodian and one of his assistants had carefully examined my office without uncovering the squirrel. They opened the window and left the office closed up.

I decided to leave it alone for a while -- after all, the squired had holed up for 6
hours the day before -- and patrolled the building for a while. After an hour or so I
returned to my office to find everything was the same. One of the custodial
staff was there and he carefully examined everything again and said to call him
if we saw or heard it.

For the remainder of the day I worked in my office, with the 12 degree breeze blowing across my keyboard -- tempered by the 90 degree radiations from my radiator so it
wasn't too bad. Muddy footprints were all over the office and I periodically discovered some hidden squirrel poop on my papers and window sill. The furry intruder did not show his face leaving most to conclude that he had departed. Not being quite as confident, I once again left the baited trap under my desk and, at the end of the day, left for the weekend.

The end?

***
For those non-believers, this photo was snapped from my desk this Friday.