Episode 304 - Wednesday, April 18, 1979

This isn't strictly relevant to the podcast, but there's a chipmunk hiding in our basement. How do I get this chipmunk out of our basement?

How'd that chipmunk get in your house, Chris? you may ask.

Well, since you're curious, our cat Louie brought it in this morning before my wife left for work. He caught it somewhere out in the back courtyard and brought it in through the screen door, which the main back door was open because it was nice out and the screen door was closed but it has a big ol' hole in it so the animals can proceed in and out at their leisure. So he comes in with this chipmunk and he lets it loose it on the floor to play with and/or torture to death, and the damn thing gets away from him and runs down the stairs into the basement. So at that point, bedlam erupts. Louie takes off after the chipmunk, and so does George (our dog, a dachshund/beagle mix), and they're all like barking and hissing and yipping and just freaking the fuck out to high heaven. Meanwhile, the poor chipmunk -- who for all we know may be mortally injured -- he's all hiding under a bookshelf just absolutely petrified with fear and George is running around and around and sniffing at it and, like, trying to squeeze his entire head underneath the bookshelf, which, not going to happen George. And Louie by now is sitting off to the side just watching him with a look on his face like Dogs, amiright?

So my wife texts me to come home -- I was at the gym. Yeah, I work out, y'know, I take care of myself. Yes, since you ask, I'm pretty fit, not like beefy or anything, just lean and tightly muscled. If you want, you can picture me like that while you're listening to the podcast: well-proportioned, athletic, reclining with an easy grace that belies the incredible power of my physical form, possibly shirtless and covered with oil for some reason.

Anyway, my wife texts me and she's all like You need to come home right away because (1) there's a chipmunk in the basement and (2) my Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo has returned so you'll need to drive me to work. The vertigo is a whole other thing. Don't even worry about that.

So whatever. I get Louie and George out of the basement and tell the chipmunk like Just hang on little guy, help is on the way. And then I go back up the stairs and shut the door and drop my wife off at work* and on the way back I stop by the Home Depot and pick me up a Havahart Brand Live Animal Cage Trap which seems like a repetitive name, but, as I say, whatever. (But also, just FYI, the box is labelled in French and Spanish as well as English, presumably so the good people at Havahart can market their fine products throughout North America, and anyway, that product name in French is Piège-cage pour la prise d'animaux vivants and I, for one, absolutely love the animaux vivants part because it reminds me of the term bon vivant but, like, for an animal. Like, "Oh, that rooster? He's always out on the town, wearing the latest fashions, patronizing the trendiest establishments. A true animaux vivant." Anyway, I digress.)

So I bring the Havahart Brand Live Animal Cage Trap home and I assemble it and I figure out how to set it and I bait it with some peanut butter** because what rodent in his/her right mind doesn't love peanut butter. And I take it down into the basement (making sure that Louie and George don't follow me, of course) and Oh my god where the fuck is that chipmunk? Damn thing is nowhere to be found. I look under everything, tear the basement apart looking, shine my flashlight everywhere. Nothing. NOTHING.

So like I say: whatever. But I mean, still, where is it? Where is it? The door was closed. There's no other way out of that basement. Where is it? WHERE IS IT?

Do I just leave the trap down there, baited with peanut butter, with the basement door permanently closed, just waiting for this lazy-ass disappearing chipmunk to get off its duff and trip the latch so I can take it back outside and release it in the wild? I mean, we can't just seal off the basement indefinitely. We need that basement for other things. I do the laundry in that basement. I podcast in that basement! What the hell, chipmunk?

Today's strip

* Wait a minute, Chris, you may be asking, don't you also have a job? What are you doing hanging out at the gym on a weekday morning while your wife is out earning a living? Yes, in fact, I do have a job. I record a daily Garfield recap podcast.

** crunchy, natch