Another epic story of my life:
   
     My mom lives in Norfolk, in the house that my brother, Tanner, and I grew up in, with our dog, Gabby. The other night she sent me a text message of a picture of a squirrel and the caption said that he was stuck in our fireplace. This is not the first time a bird or squirrel has fallen down our fireplace. She Googled how to get a squirrel out of your fireplace and it said drop a rope down the chimney and the squirrel will climb out. I freaked out a little though, because I forgot my brother was home for spring break and I thought she was alone and would be climbing all over the roof by herself.
     Well, he did not take the rope.
     Tanner went for a new tactic. Our dog has really bad allergies and when she has to stay outside in her kennel when we're gone for the weekend, our vet told us to put a little Benadryl in her food to calm her down and help with her itchy paws. Tanner thought maybe he could drug the squirrel and then he'd be easier to catch, so Tanner slipped pepperoni laced with Benadryl through the screen of the fireplace.
     I came home today for the weekend since I am on a break as well. When Tanner and I walked into our house from the gym, the squirrel barked (awful, awful noise) and dived off of our china cabinet and ran. He had busted out of the glass cover on our fireplace! Needless to say the Benadryl did not work.
     Tanner and I both immediately sprinted (me screaming of course) toward the back of the house to shut the doors to our rooms, because we wanted to try and cut off places for him to hide. We were not fast enough. I know you're surprised, we thought we could outrun a squirrel too.
     We were so slow, we didn't even see where it went! My door was open a crack and since that would've been the first door he would've seen, we thought he was in there. We shut the door and called our mom at work. She gave us this whole speech about rabies so we were all freaked out about how we were going to catch this sucker. We got back on the internet and it said that the squirrel will run toward light or to throw a blanket over it, ball it up, and take it outside. Perfect. A blanket will also act as a nice full body shield against the rabies. We both donned a blanket cloak and decided we'd rather approach the squirrel from the outside. Don't ask me why we thought this was the best logic.
      The only way to see into the window of my room is standing on a ledge that hangs over the stairwell to our basement, so, like, a 20 foot drop. We're up there though, in our blankets, and my window is locked! Crap! Either way, at least, we couldn't see him in my room.
      We go back inside and it started barking again. It was in the office! We shut all the other doors, shut off all the lights and covered all the windows in the house and opened all the doors to the outside. We were still freaked out about the rabies so neither one of us wanted to go in and chase it out. Tanner did not feel safe enough with just his blanket shield so he grabbed a bb gun out of his room. It wasn't loaded. He thought maybe he could scare the squirrel with it though. Right.
     Our mom's room in across the hall from the office so we got all the shoes from her closet and started chucking them across the hall into the office. He just kept barking and barking and we weren't scaring him out!
     Together, still blanketed, because neither one of us would do it alone, we peeked into the room. He was hanging, clinging for dear life, onto the curtain rod. Still barking. I'm serious, Google squirrel bark, that stuffs horrid. Actually, let me do it for you. Just like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1_2r8lZxss&feature=related 
     Tanner grabbed a pillow and we flung it at the squirrel and scrambled into his room, slamming the door closed. After, maybe 20 seconds, we opened the door, thinking we'd see it running out. But no. He was gone. We've no idea where it went. All we know is that it's not here now and it's been a whole day.
     I kid you not. This is my life.