The Story of the Chipmunk

I once lived on a busy street in a two-story house. I lived alone most of the time - my daughter was either in college or in her own apartment; however, I did have two cats.

My bedroom was on the second floor and one night I was awakened by the distinctive sounds of cats on the hunt - in my bedroom. I reluctantly got out of my bed and found both of my cats huddle by plastic milk crates that were in the corner of the room. The colorful crates held my collection of old albums - real old albums. The cats were trying to get to a chipmunk cowering in the corner behind the crates.

At first I was a bit stunned to find a chipmunk in my bedroom. I was on the second floor - the darn thing had to sneak inside somehow and then make it up a flight of steps, down a hall and into my room without the cats picking up on its arrival. Finally I realized that if I didn't do something, my bedroom would be the scene of my indoor cats first real "kill". Sighing, I looked around for something to use as a chipmunk carrier. A shoebox! Not as if I didn't have any - my nickname wasn't Imelda for nothing.

I balanced a shoe box in one had and gingerly reached down to pick up the trembling bit of an animal by the teeny scruff of its teeny neck. I can only imagine what was going on in the teeny chipmunk mind. First he had been corner by two ferocious beasts and then this huge thing was reaching down to grab him.

I placed the captured, shaking little fellow in the shoebox, slapped on the lid and then walked out of the bedroom, down the hall, down the stairs, into the living and out into the cool fall evening, making sure my feline partners in the capture where not sneaking out behind me. There I was, a forty-something nightgowned woman, standing on her postage-stamp sized front yard along the busiest street in town in the middle of the night - carrying a shoe box. I had decided his burrow must have been in the front of the house under my porch; since he had so quickly and safely made it into the house, he must have arrived by the front door, scurring in with me unannounced.

"Okay, little fellow," I said as I took off the lid. "Just remember who saved your furry butt." I turned the box upside down on the grass so he could scamper out and go home. I lifted the box expecting to see furry butt running off, but there was nothing - no chippie. "Damn! He couldn't have gotten out of the box and was back in the house," I said to myself. If that was the case, I wouldn't have to give the cats breakfast - I had left them right behind me - having closely followed every footstep of my rescue mission.

"Well, look in the damn box," I said out loud as I turned the box over to check out the inside. And sure enough, there chippy was, all four little legs stretched out and clinging to all four sides of the box - paralized in fear. Of course - I would have been, too. Snarling, saliva-drooling beasts and then a giant. What in that scenerio says trust?

"Okay, buster. Here's freedom. Take it." Again I turned the box upside down on the grass, but this time I made several light taps on the bottom. I picked it up and rewarded by the sight of a teeny, furry chipmunk butt doing a fast chipmunk retreat.

I've told this story many times, using facial expressions and my arms and legs out stretched to relate the picture of a chipmunk clinging to the inside of a shoebox. It always brings laughter.

Today, I realized that there is more to that story.

The chipmunk was rescued and given a chance for freedom. But he didn't recognize his rescuer and didn't realize he was to be saved. It took a couple of taps on the box from a giant hand to get his attention - to make him understand that he had to move.

How many taps from a giant hand do you need? How do you recognize your rescuer?
Start by looking in the mirror.