Men, We Need You

"728 to 711?"
"711, go ahead."
"Please come to the cafeteria..."

I was putting some clean sheets in the Ahwanee cabin when the call came in over the radio.  The tone of voice warned me that this was serious.  I knew I must respond immediately to some great danger, but my suspicion was rodent.

I met my co-worker Sonya at the front of the cafeteria.  She was near hysteria, tears at the corner of her wide eyes, panic in her voice.  There was a clattering and chattering noise coming from the kitchen behind her.  Dang it.  It was a rodent problem.

Sort of.
"It's a squirrel!  I left the door open, and...oh, that's what I get for leaving the door open!  Andrea, I don't know what to do!  It's stuck!  The squirrel...it's stuck!  The squirrel is stuck to the sticky mouse trap!  What do I do?!  I can't kill it!  I don't know what to do!" Sonya sobbed uncontrollably.

Ah, yes.  I would love to help, but..."I don't do rodents."

"BUT WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!  YOU CAN'T LEAVE ME!!"

I calmly assessed the situation, opening the side kitchen door, walking in, and hearing the racket right behind me unexpectedly, I ran to the other side of the room screaming.  From a distance, I saw the pitiful creature, under the shelf of pots, stuck to, not just one, but two sticky mouse traps.

Ok, let's think.  All the full-time staff are gone for one reason or the other, leaving four of us task force behind to hold down the fort for the rest of the week and weekend.  The two task force guys, however, are on their day off, and have already left camp.  My first thought was the guy fixing our generators, but Sonya didn't want to stoop that low.  (Looking back, he might have charged us extra).  My second idea was to call Forest, a loyal volunteer who lives close to the camp.  But he was visiting Pastor Elden in Fresno apparently.  Pastor Elden called back and gave some helpful advice to throw a towel over it, so we wouldn't get bitten.  Bitten?  Oh yeah, forgot about that.

So carefully, between panic and laughter, the poor, half-stuck squirrel was dragged out of the kitchen, by towel (also now stuck to the sticky pads), onto the pavement outside.  Ideas soared around like vultures, sometimes in favor of life, and sometimes in favor of death of the squirrel.  It seemed like the squirrel was a little more free, and Sonya tried to help pry it off with the broom, wearing safety dish-washing gloves.  But it was getting angry and tired, and not really less stuck.  But it was obvious that it wanted to live.  Ideas began to be a lot more in favor of trying to help it live.  But how?

Oh Google.  If you only knew how many desperate situations you solve.  Today, you saved a squirrel's life.  That's right, good, old Google had the answer, because someone else asked the question of how to remove a kitten from a sticky mouse trap.  Cooking oil.  Just douse it with lots of cooking oil.


So that's what we did, and within a half-minute, the little guy was free and running right at me!  I ran away screaming, but I think the joy outweighed the terror.   Sonya wept great tears of relief.


This story is dedicated to all the men in our lives.  We salute you for dealing with these kinds of problems with ease.  We need you.

"Then God said, 'Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.'"  Gen. 1:26 (NLT)