Page 70 of The Key Holder

“How’d they even get in here?” I asked Dylan.

“The squirrels? Probably because we had a giant hole in our roof for a few weeks.”

“I put the tarp up that night.”

“And the squirrels squeezed their way in.”

Ugh.

The next few days were spent in a futile battle against the fuzzy little squatters. I tried setting humane traps, but they were either completely ignored, or sprung without catching anything. An old boombox blasting classic rock only served to annoy Dylan, and, to be honest, myself. After an hour, I got sick of it and turned it off.

I even tried leaving the kitchen window open one evening, hoping they’d find their way out, but that only resulted in a raccoon visiting us for a rather alarming staring contest after dinner.

“I like raccoons and all, and at first I thought this obsession was kind of cute, but it’s affecting our sex life,” Dylan said.

“I’m aware of that.” I leaned onto the table, head down, trying to figure out what to do next. The almonds were almost gone, and I was afraid of what they’d go for next. “Do you have any bright ideas?” I asked, looking over at him.

Dylan’s smile widened. "About time you asked for my help. Time to get rid of these freeloaders. No one touches your nuts but me." He vanished into the dark with a flashlight.

“Where are you going?” I called out.

“The shed.”

In a few minutes, he returned with…a flexible plumbing snake used for clearing drains, and duct tape.

“Really?”

“It’s not finished.”

“How did you even know we had that stuff?”

“Everyone has duct tape, and I just looked around at what was out there. I haven’t even started yet, cool your jets.”

Dylan's solution to the squirrel problem involved a surprisingly clever, and uniquely Dylan approach. I watched him grab the scissors from the drawer and cut part of the bottom of a plastic two-liter bottle off. He fed the end of the snake into the spout of the bottle and taped it securely. Next, he dabbed a few dollops of peanut butter inside the bottle, and after receiving a few of my precious almonds from me, he smushed them into the peanut butter.

“I give you, Operation Nut-Bait," he announced with a flourish.

“There’s no way this will work,” I said, pushing my chair back.

“If it works, you have to fuck me senseless like you did last week.”

“If it doesn’t work, I’m still going to fuck you senseless.”

Dylan shrugged. “Works for me.”

His plan was to use the snake device to maneuver the tempting container right into the squirrels' alleged hiding spot in the attic, lure them inside, then quickly pull it back out and take the entire contraption outdoors where they would escape. It seemed absurdly impossible, yet, knowing Dylan, it was probably going to work.

As ridiculous as Operation Nut-Bait sounded, I was willing to try anything after my week of failure. When he insisted I act as his assistant, handing me the flashlight, I didn’t object. I followed him up the stairs to the landing outside of our bedroom.

“Close the door,” he said.

After opening the attic hatch, he shoved the device, plastic container first, through the opening, and used the rigidity of the snake to push it farther into the darkness. The scratching sounds from earlier had stopped.

"Maybe they're watching?" he whispered.

Yeah, right. I held the flashlight steady as Dylan finished feeding it into the attic.

“Now, we wait,” he said, his face practically glowing. Even if this didn’t work, it was clear I should’ve asked him for help sooner.