At home alone in the evening I am attempting to read “The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao” by Junot Diaz. I’m also half listening to the evening news. And I’m studiously ignoring Katie who is by the back door barking about something. Doesn’t everyone read like this? I hear a faint thud, then another. Turning down the sound on the TV, I go to see what’s up with the dog. Now she is hysterically barking at the door and there are definite sounds of something…or someone…out there. But the more I listened, in between telling Katie to BE QUIET the more I thought it might be something, say a bird, that had gotten into the wall or up in the attic.

Leaving Katie behind I ventured outside to see if there was a hole in the siding that would have let a bird in to make a nest. Standing out there, inspecting the house I heard something in the garage clawing at the garden door, trying to get out of the garage! It sounded HUGE! And scary. I ran back inside to consider my next step. Obviously birds don’t have claws and whatever was in there wanted out NOW.

I went out, got in the car (locked the car doors, the garage monster might be able to open a car door!) backed it away from the garage and pressed the garage door opener. I figured whatever it was might run out. Our garage is full of gardening stuff, so I couldn’t see much, but I waited, confident that the monster would take the easy way out and run away. Nothing. I went back in the house and got a flashlight, and ventured part of the way into the garage, flashing my light under things and tentatively around corners. Nothing. But I could see, at the back of the garage that something was peeling the door out to the garden apart and chewing on the insulation inside the door. It’s a steel door but it was no match for the garage monster! I went back inside to the howling dog, locked the door and called my husband. No answer. I was on my own.

The sun was going down and I didn’t want to be working on this problem in the dark. Grabbing the flashlight I raced back around the house and approached the garden door. I could hear the THING clawing at the door again. I rattled the doorknob, hoping that would make it back away, and pushed the door open. Shining the flashlight under the workbench I saw…nothing. I backed away from the door. Nothing. It was getting dark. I didn’t want to be out there with whatever was in the garage. But I also didn’t want it in there. Finally a really big ground hog face appeared in the door, then backed back into the garage. AHA!

I left the door open and went back inside to answer the phone. Husband wanted to know what was up. I told him I’d taken care of it, believing that certainly the ground hog would leave while I was on the phone. After the call I went back out and closed everything back up and settled back into my chair to read. THUNK! Katie howled. The thing was still in there! DRATS!

So in the end I went back out into the dark night, opened all the doors, rattled around in the garage and chased the groundhog out into the night myself. I know he’s going to eat my green beans which have sprouted in the garden, but better that than my house. I guess. That’s just the breaks of living in the country.

Now Katie, go to sleep, you can stop barking. Really