Chipmunk in the Convent

An imagined conversation over the dinner table tonight at a New Jersey home:

Wife: How was work today, honey?

Husband: Well, you know that job, cleaning the air ducts and vents at that big convent on the Pallisades?

Wife: Yes ... you've been there all week, rigt?

Husband: Yup, it' a huge building and today we were supposed to finish with the last little bit.

Wife: Supposed to?

Husband: Well, we'd left the front door open in this one little part of the house to air everything out downstairs.

Wife: And?

Husband: We were upstairs finishing the job when one of the young nuns came up to tell us that a chipmunk had come through the open door and was in the living room.

You can imagine the rest. I was of course the young nun, who had come in the wide open front door and caught movement out of the corner of her eye in the living room. Bigger than a mouse, smaller than a squirrel. I'm pretty sure the little critter was a chipmunk.

I then spent the next hour sitting in the hallway as the 3 guys from the duct cleaning company were in the living room trying to coax the little guy out. The door was closed, I heard lots of noises and thumping. One of the guys came out and said only, "He's quick" with a look of exasperation that said much more. They then opened the door and set up a little path with a wall of boxes from the living room door to the outside door. Then they made lots more noises and tried to chase him out. We think he went out ... can't find him anyway.

In any case, the guys have to come back tomorrow to finish their real job, as operation chipmunk took over an hour. We're going to leave the living room door closed today in case he's still there!

I've written about chipmunks before, but having them in your house is another thing!

Chipmunk update. Apparently he spent the night in our living room and when the guys opened the door this morning, he ran outside!