April 1, 2020
It’s Wednesday so homeschool lets out early. Pam is working somewhere in the house. Nola is upstairs playing with her horses. And Judah is in his room. (I can hear him banging and banging on something, but at least I’m alone.) I’m in my office doing stuff that needs to get done. Don’t ask me what. Just stuff. People talk about the extra time and learning a foreign language or how to play guitar. No. There’s no extra time. Fuck that.
Suddenly Pam and Nola are in my room.
“Dad, I can hear the squirrels!”
Nola has her hands on her face, and Pam has a look of vague terror on hers. The fact is that we have squirrels. At least we think we do. We hear scratchings and stumblings in the space between our bedroom ceiling and the attic floor. We hear it mostly late at night.
“Nola says she heard something,” says Pam holding Nola.
“I heard them, Dad! I can hear them scratching!”
“Where?”
“In the attic. I think they’re in the crawlspace. Can you please come look?!”
I look at Pam.
“I’m not going in there,” she says.
I sleep my computer and go upstairs to the attic, Pam and Nola right behind me.
“There,” says Nola pointing at the half door.
I open the door. Pam and Nola both instinctively flinch and move back. I get on my hands and knees and start crawling inside.
“APRIL FOOLS! APRIL FOOLS!”
😳
“We got you, Dad! We got you!”
“You did, you did,” I say backing my butt out the door. “Nice job.”
“You know what she did earlier,” says Pam. “She gave me an Oreo with toothpaste in it.”
“I did, Dad! I did! I totally got, Mom!”
I should feel got. I should feel annoyed that I stopped what I was doing to go bravely battle squirrels. But all I feel is pride.
Fun fact1: I shared an April Fools bit on Facebook about trump and how someday his leadership, wisdom and grace will be heralded and that I would be foolish to suggest otherwise. It got no repsonse at all. Maybe people thought I was serious or that April Fools had been canceled this year.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Fun fact 2: Nah, the calls are coming from inside the house…
