Salvation Lies Within

It all started a couple of months ago when PhillyTwo discovered a raccoon on the back deck eating Fred's food, and it occurred to us that maybe Fred didn't really eat his weight in dog food every day after all. So we promptly moved his food indoors. A few days later, PhillyTwo began hearing noises that sounded like a family of small animals was scratching out a living somewhere above our heads, either in the attic or on the roof. It was hard to pinpoint, but eventually we narrowed it to the area above the bird's nest (the room formerly known as the bonus room). There was no doubt about it. Our home had become a group home.
It was an eerie feeling listening to the sound of critters, or vermin as I like to call them, moving around over our heads. While PhillyTwo was convinced it was the raccoon, lurking on the roof, waiting for dinner to be served, I was sure it was something worse. Then Sunday morning, as I was sitting at the table drinking my coffee, working the Sunday crossword puzzle, there it was, spelled out for me like a sign from above: roof rat. It was the answer to one of the clues. I couldn't google fast enough. Everything added up. The tree growing up to the roof right next to the house. The tell-tale noises. We, by God, had roof rats. I was sure of it. It was time to call the exterminator. In the meantime, PhillyTwo wasn't buying it. She stuck to her raccoon theory, convinced that the noises we were hearing couldn't be made by smaller creatures. The exterminator came, did his routine inspection, and while there weren't any traces (as in poop), he said it was, in all probability, mice. He planted his traps and left. I felt such a relief...until...it got dark and the noises got loud and PhillyTwo announced that she was going to go take a look. She grabbed a flashlight and headed outside, and standing out there in the road in the dark, she spotted him on the roof. Granted, when he found himself in the spotlight, he tried to flatten himself out as much as he could. But she beckoned me outside and I had to admit she was right. There he was, the flat little bastard. She had maintained all along that raccoons had good memories and that he kept coming back because he hoped that eventually we'd put Fred's food back outside. Okay, so maybe we don't have roof rats. Or mice. But what we do have is a creepy little raccoon who sits on our roof and scratches. PhillyTwo named him Andy Dufresne, after the character from "Shawshank Redemption" who scratched his way out of prison. But unless this Andy can do our taxes, I want his sorry ass off the premises.