Robin to Heather: “Is that noise coming from our living room?” – Humour

Yesterday afternoon, after Robin arrived from his weekend interviewing in the country, we took a few hours (Bollywood films are about 3h long) to watch a movie. Earlier that morning I had been sitting out on my rooftop when a cooling rain began. I though it would be best to open up the entire flat to air it out and enjoy the brief relief from the heat. Robin, having been in jam-packed, non-AC busses all weekend really wanted to watch the movie in his room with the AC blasting. Fair enough. About two hours into the film though we heard a high-pitched whistle. It seemed to be a bird. The whistling became louder, so loud in fact, it drowned out the Hindi musical which was set at a high enough volume to hear over the whirring/blowing noises of the AC. Robin and I turned towards each other panic-stricken. It seems as though a bird had flown in. WE had no choice but to try to coax it out before it defiled all the Gandhi’s furniture. To our surprise, when we opened the door prepared to usher out the bird, a screeching chipmunk/squirrel was clinging to the screen of the living room window. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Had we trapped a poor squirrel? All I could think about was the time a squirrel got into Alex Ruzicka’s Evanston house and the torn curtains, the dirty footprints and all the upset. The passport health nurse’s warnings of RABIES came to mind. Quickly, I slammed Robin’s bedroom door. We were both alarmed. The supreme delegator (and wimp) that I am, I told Robin he must bravely traverse the living room to get help. My selling point was that I don’t yet know Hindi and it would be quite unproductive for me to pantomime “there is a wild chipmunk/squirrel reeking havoc on our home,” especially so because I was wearing (gulp) shorts. I was trying to couch my fear of Rabies and the possibility of the furry mammal clinging with his claws to my bare leg, with the language barrier and Indian modesty as my scapegoat. Whether or not Robin saw through my excuses, he courageously made his way to our flat’s front door. At that, the squirrel shrieked a little more, and scurried around on the screen a bit. I was shocked, speechless; Robin nearly paralyzed with fear. Then we took a closer look. The claws were on the inside…meaning…the squirrel wasn’t in our flat, but outside, enjoying the nice cross breeze. What silly geese we are!