When we first moved into this rental house I noticed a towel packed tightly into a gap, floor level, between the dishwasher and a cupboard. I figured it's there for a reason and best left alone. A couple of months ago my well meaning teenage daughter went on a cleaning spree and pulled it out before asking me what it was there for. I immediately asked her to replace it and forgot all about it until today.

If you haven't read about my mole/actually shrew escapade then read it here. I managed, with my ninja skills, to rid my house of the vermin.

So this morning I was enjoying my coffee while sitting at my laptop when I noticed movement out of the corner of my eye. I look over and through that stinking gap that isn't quite sealed right anymore after my daughter messed with it, I see the stuff of nightmares. Okay not really nightmares but it was small, fast, brown and furry. And it scurried right at me and under my damn couch again!

Imagine for a minute, a small 4'9" woman, curled on the couch with coffee and a laptop. Her face distorts into a tormented grimace as she screams "Nooooooooo!" at the friggin creature. Like it's gonna say, "What? Now's not a good time? My bad, I'll leave now." Then turns and runs back into the hole in which it came from.

Nope that would be too good to be true. Instead it dove underneath the couch I sat on as I continued to scream. Finally I worked up the nerve to move to the kitchen island and perched on a stool to call hubby. This time he's in the same state, just five minutes away in fact. But he's heading into a meeting and can't come rescue me for an hour.

My ninja skills are exhausted so I'm heading for higher ground. So I'm holed up in the second floor office until he gets here.

That's one way to make sure I don't get distracted by cleaning. I've got nothing else to do now but sit at this computer and write.

Oh, did I mention shrews have venomous bites?! Yeah, it won't kill me but could kill my sun conure. That must be why he screamed with  me.

Evil Incarnate!

Hubby finally came home and search the main floor several times. He thinks it went back to it's hole so we've plugged it up with cardboard for now until we can get something more permanent.

I'm gonna stay upstairs for the day. Excalibur (the sun conure) agrees. 

He told me this by screaming and flapping his wings wildly!