This actually happened, 5:30 PM, Saturday,
May 31, 2003.
I had been out
all day, first doing music on the hammered dulcimer for a wedding and
reception, then going to a rehearsal for a program for UT Gardens June 28. The wedding was a blast from the past
involving the groom who used to come with his mother and sister to the goat
club years ago! His mother, Linda
Anderson still has Alpines and some of the guests, Tom and Leslie Gourley, also
were in the Smoky Mt. DGA with their children years ago. It was just wonderful to see Nathan
Anderson, all grown up, having just graduated from law school at Boston,
getting married to the daughter of a former co-worker. If you had told me back than that I would be
playing music at this curly headed little boy’s wedding one day, I would not
have believed it! The rehearsal dinner was wonderfully set in a renovated horse
barn at the Anderson’s, their lovely Alpines in the distant pasture. I’ve never seen chandeliers in a barn loft
before!
Got home, brought
all my junk in out of the truck, changed to my old clothes, took the day’s mail
and went to the bathroom.
My white cat,
Denver, was sitting in the window beside the toilet and the Scottish Fold cat,
Shadow, was sitting on the side of the tub.
There I am, my clothes around my ankles, reading my mail, when Denver
suddenly lunges at the screen. Shadow
reacts by putting her front paws up to the window, but Denver growls and she
retreats. I didn’t see anything in the window,
but I am seated below the ledge of the window pane. I am just hoping he doesn’t have a wasp because I am somewhat
vulnerable at this point. Denver is
quiet and calm again, so I think maybe there’s a bug on the screen, when
suddenly he jumps at something in the corner of the window and comes up with a
rodent in his mouth. I thought he had a
mouse, but then spied the long striped tail hanging and knew it was a
chipmunk. Denver lifts the hapless
creature up in his mouth and it starts peeing on the sill, I guess out of
fright, then below the window on the floor and on me. I’m trying to get Denver to jump down out of the window away from
me when he drops the chipmunk in my pants.
Both cats are
frantically searching the tub and bathroom floor for their prey, but it burrows
lower into my left pants leg. I would
have had to untie my shoes and removed them to get my infested pants off, so I
grab a hand towel and lay it over the inside of my kakis, hiding the chipmunk
from them. I am thinking to myself that
this scared rodent is going to jump up out of my pants and scratch or bite me,
or jump into my face, then cats and
chipmunk would be fighting around me.
Do chipmunks carry rabies? I
don’t know the answer to that, but I don’t want to pick this live animal up out
of my pants to take the chance. I could
see myself at the emergency room: “Yes,
doctor, I got scratched by a wild chipmunk who was inside my pants”. “Yeah, sure. Heard it all”. Here’s
your horrible rabies shots.
With the towel
over the inside of my pants, I get up, hobble out of the bathroom door, alert
for signs of the animal clawing up or falling out of the pants leg, and make my
way out the front door, shutting the screen door so the cats don’t follow me. Good thing I live in a secluded area, but I
happen to have a long purple dulcimer T-shirt on which pretty much covers me,
luckily. I remove the towel and see Mr.
Beast has worked his way below my underwear, so I pull that up and turn the
pants over to push him out of my clothes.
There he is on the porch, just lying there, dead or stunned or in shock,
but not moving. I pull my pants on,
even though they are a bit wet with chipmunk pee, but someone could drive by
and I really shouldn’t be outside without pants. It’s not my best look.
I can’t just
leave him there for the cats to find.
They’d bring it back into the house to eat or play with, so I wrap the
towel around him and look for any slight signs of life. There are his little rodent teeth, his long
claws on all 4 feet, his stripes, his furry tail. I’m not going to do chipmunk CPR, but I thump lightly on his side
to see if he’ll wake up. No movement,
so I take him down the steps and lay him in the bushes where the cats won’t see
him. As soon as I stepped away, he
moved!! He got off his side, stood up
on his hind legs looking at me for a brief moment, then ran away into the woods
behind the creeping rose bush. Oh my
goodness, he was just stunned by fright or had the wind as well as the pee,
knocked out of him by Denver. Ah life
is an adventure.