The Couch Chronicles: Chapter Two

First, if you'll remember, it was a crabapple. Allegedly.
Yesterday, things got a bit more aggressive. And furrier... things got furrier.
Back on the couch (what? it was raining. i wasn't watching oprah OR nancy drew. i'd already been on set at 7 in the morning, shooting a commercial. that's my work. get off my back.) and typing away furiously at my never-quite-done resume, I heard a thump that made the last thump sound more like a gentle tap. I whipped my head around to the window behind me, but this time there was no goo, no glob, still no beakless pigeon. I climbed up on the couch to peer out and make sure no hapless bird or harmless fruit was laying on the air conditioning unit. And I squealed like a little baby and almost broke my neck flying backward as a squirrel launched himself (or herself, it's tough to tell when they're moving) straight up at the window.
Apparently, the little guy (or girl) wasn't content to be on the back deck of my second floor apartment.
(Wait, speaking of a little guy on the floor, allow me to go back for a second. Just to give you an idea of what kind of PETA nightmare I'm living in these days. Friday morning, I wake up and stumble into the kitchen to find a mouse stuck to about 6 of those glue strip thingies. I think those things should be illegal. They are beyond cruel, completely ineffective, and totally gross. And yet, here they were, mission sort of accomplished, in the middle of my kitchen floor. I don't know how they - or he - got there. I suspect that my roommate saw or heard him in the morning, freaked out, tossed them on the floor, and left. She says he must've gotten stuck to them under the sink. It's a fishy story. Anyway. Long story short, I sobbed all morning watching this poor animal struggle and squirm and literally rip himself apart, completely alive and alert and I'm sure scared out of his little mind and in more pain than I can even conceive of, before finally having to swath him in an entire roll of paper towels like the shroud of fucking Disneyland, scuttle him into the biggest bag I could find, and taking him outside to complete his losing battle in the rain. I have never prayed so hard for my soul. It's been a tough week for the animal kingdom here on First Street.)
Back to the squirrel.
Once I realized he wasn't actually trying to bust through the window but to somehow scale it, it was less scary, still a little upsetting, and actually pretty funny. He was leaping in that spread eagle flying squirrel way that they do from the window sill to... nothing. I don't even know what he had his little buggy eye on. The apartment above us doesn't have a deck or anything, so all I can surmise is that after a short stint eavesdropping on me, he got bored and decided he wanted to check out the action one windowsill up. For all the points I'll give him for pluck, he gets a big fat zero for execution.
Finally I had to open the back door and yell at him till he got annoyed enough to leave. He shimmied his way back down the drainpipe and disappeared from sight.
So sadly, I'm not expecting to be the next "I'd Rather Go Naked" billboard. Which, truthfully, just leaves me even more unmotivated to work out.