It was Winter, Nineteen Ninety-something, and I was living alone for the first time in my life. My apartment was a studio on the second floor of a converted three-story Victorian house. The layout included a living room/bedroom, a small bathroom, and a kitchen. A long skinny hallway connected the three rooms, like the backbone of a capital E. The kitchen had a large window overlooking the alley and a back door leading to a set of rickety stairs to which only my upstairs neighbor and I had access. I mainly entered and exited from the front door in the living room, which opened onto a landing I shared with the other second-floor apartment and a staircase leading to the lobby and the street.
I worked late that fateful night and arrived home, exhausted, around 10 p.m. I came in the front door and immediately headed for the bathroom to take a shower. In the hallway wall next to my bathroom was a built-in linen cupboard, and as I passed it, I noticed the cupboard door standing open. Strange, but then, old houses are full of doors that don’t always latch properly. I closed it and went on my way.
I was washing my hair when I heard a strange noise.
Knock, knock, knock.
It sounded like someone trying to get into my apartment. I froze, all senses on high alert.
The noise came again: Knock knock knock.
Feeling like Janet Leigh in Psycho, I quickly turned off the shower and got dressed, sopping wet, in my favorite pajamas, flannel with huge coffee cups printed on them (This was the era of Friends, a point which will become relevant soon).
My hair wrapped in a towel, my glasses fogged over with shower steam, I slowly opened the bathroom door and did exactly what one should never do when dropped into a horror movie scenario.
“Hello?” I called, announcing myself and my location to any and all ax murderers in the vicinity.
No answer, but the sound came again, Knock, knock, knock.
It was coming from the kitchen.
Barefoot, I crept down the hallway, and as my glasses cleared, I saw movement from the small table beneath the kitchen’s picture window. Two red, beady eyes stared at me.
Squirrel eyes.
I screamed. The startled squirrel hurled itself against the window — knock— before taking flight (I swear to God, it flew), running up my kitchen wall, across framed pictures, across the top of the refrigerator, across the stove, counter, and
Right. Toward. Me.
Still screaming, I ran up the hall into my living room, leaping onto my couch like a 1950s sitcom character. The squirrel did a lap around the floor and streaked back into the kitchen, hurling its little body against the windowpane, trying to escape the noisy lunatic in pajamas.
Cautiously, I tiptoed down the hall and quietly opened wide the seldom-used back door. “Maybe,” I thought, responsible twenty-something that I was, “the squirrel will run out into the hallway, and I can shut the door and let my upstairs neighbor deal with it.”
The squirrel, ignoring this sensible plan, continued waging war against the windowpane. I retreated to the living room and resumed screaming.
A knock at the front door and my neighbor’s voice: “Are you okay?”
“Squirrel!” I called. “There’s a squirrel in my apartment!” I opened the door in time to see my neighbor’s door closing and hear the deadbolt slide into place. From behind the closed door, I thought I heard the faint sound of laughter.
Author Note: I don’t know why, at this point, I didn’t get my keys and leave. I think it had something to do with living on my own, and feeling like this was somehow a test for adulthood that I needed to pass. Or maybe it’s because I’m bad in a crisis. Whatever the reason, the next thing I did was drag my landline into my closet, close the door, and dial 9-1-1.
Why did I do this? Well, this is where the aforementioned show makes its appearance. In the episode “The One Where the Monkey Gets Away,” Ross’s pet monkey, Marcel, escapes from Monica and Rachel’s apartment. Not knowing what to do, Rachel calls Animal Control.
Not knowing what to do, Joanna calls 911 thinking that Friends certainly wouldn’t lie to her.
“911, what is your emergency?”
“Squirrel! Squirrel in my apartment!”
“Oh dear,” A true professional, the operator’s voice remained deadpan. “That is a problem.”
“Can you connect me to Animal Control?” I cried, now hyperventilating from adrenaline and shock. My mouth tasted like I’d been sucking on a penny.
“They’re closed now, dear, but if you give me your address, I’ll send help.”
I recited my address and hung up the phone to wait, relief flooding over me. Help was on its way.
The sounds from my kitchen were getting louder, the knocks against the window, the sound of little feet running across my dishes (I would never cook in that kitchen again), the shattering of pottery as my peace lily was knocked off its home atop the table.
I put on my shoes—Steve Madden stacked penny loafers (again, the 90s)—and waited on the landing until I heard the wail of sirens and saw the flashing lights of a fire truck pulling up to my building. Moments later, five burly, fully-suited firefighters were at my door. One was holding a fire extinguisher. I had an out-of-body moment before a crash from the kitchen brought me back to reality. This was not a rom-com meet-cute. This was definitely not an episode of Friends. This was a Crazy Cat Lady story, one these first responders would recount later, starting with: “You won’t believe the whackjob call we got tonight….”
I pointed, and they stomped through the apartment heading for the kitchen. The hallway was so narrow they had to move in a single file formation. The squirrel, perhaps sensing that the odds had turned against him, made a break for it, streaking between their booted feet and racing up the living room wall, doing his Spiderman act across my fireplace mantle.
Instinctively, I resumed my perch on the back of the couch. One of the firefighters turned to me. “Ma'am,” he said matter-of-factly, “Squirrels always climb to the tallest point available.” He pointed to the couch, my four-inch heels, and the towel wrapped around my head. “Right now, that’s you.”
I got down. The squirrel raced back to the kitchen, the firefighters right behind him. I heard a thunk! and a whoosh! and then… silence.
The parade of firefighters tromped past me, and out the front door. The last to leave was holding the squirrel, now coated in blue foam, in his gloved hands. It twitched as it went by, possibly waving its little squirrel fist at me in fury. “You’ve won this time,” I imagined it calling, as it disappeared into that long, dark, rodent night. “But I’ll be back. I’ll…. Beeeeee….. Back…..”
I moved out a few weeks later. It turned out that my hall closet had a hole to the attic in it, and the attic itself had several holes in the roof. My squirrel visitor had fallen through the hole in the roof, then again through the hole in my linen closet, knocking the door open and depositing him into my apartment.
There you have it. The Squirrel Story, in all its humiliating glory. The lesson? Do not take advice from the show Friends. You will feel silly. Also, it’s thirty years later and I still think squirrels look at me funny. As if they are plotting, waiting for the right time…. for revenge.