Lauren Ober, Squirrel Catcher and All-Around Awesome Human

Dear Besties,

Yesterday, as I was gasbagging with my coworkers about being a short-timer here at the Free Press (yes, I am leaving. I am becoming a circus freak. I figured I have to do something with all this body hair.), I happened to see a baby squirrel crawling out from underneath a colleague’s desk. I stopped in mid-sentence and stared at the small, scared creature, who was clearly traumatized from being stuck in our building for a week. Trust me, lil’ squirrelly, I know what you were going through.

Last week, another colleague heard a little squealing over her head. Assuming she was going batty, we all just put our heads down and ignored her. But apparently over the weekend, more squeals were heard coming from overhead and the weekend staff realized that there was a creature stuck in the ceiling tiles. In an effort to rescue the little chum from his nightmare, the staff removed some tiles so that he might find a way  out of the ceiling. Sadly, this was to no avail. The squirrel, who I’ll call Mario, took one look at the newsroom and was like, “Um, hell no I’m getting stuck down there. What a dumperoo! I’d rather stay snuggled in the ventilation system. “

Then on Monday, as we were talking, our little furry friend creeped out ever so slowly into the newsroom. He was so tiny! But his feet were huge. And when he walked, he kept getting tripped up by them. I wanted to take him home and love him. Obviously, we had to devise a way to capture Mario without killing him or him killing us. We decided on trapping him with a recycling box. So I grabbed a big blue box and tiptoed over to our visitor. A coworker lured the little beast to him with an apple core and ever so slowly, I put the box on top of him. Mario didn’t make a peep and we all congratulated ourselves for our geniosity.

I figured he might be hungry since the only thing he would have found in our office were some stale bread crumbs on the counter and moldy fruit in the refrigerator. I ripped off pieces of apple and slide them under the box. We could hear Mario noshing on them under the box. Another coworker gave me a peanut to give to our captive, but he wasn’t much interested in that, much to our dismay.

With Mario safely confined under the box,  it came time to figure out what to do with him. My idea of taking him home and making him my baby wasn’t really feasible since I share my apartment with a squirrel-obsessed canine. Someone had the brazilliant idea of calling a maintenance guy. Who knew we even had such a thing? He came up, surveyed the situation and promptly put another recycling box on top of the one that held Mario. He said he didn’t want it to escape. Um, right. How exactly can a one-pound squirrel lift a recycling tub off his head? Just curious.

This is a photo of great minds. I am in the lower left corner.

Anyway, the maintenance feller grabbed a piece of plywood that just happened to be around and slipped it underneath the recycling box. The trick was to get Mario onto the plywood and not let him escape. I’m not sure what I would have done if he had wigged out and scurried up my arm or something. Luckily, I didn’t have to entertain that scenario because Mario didn’t try to escape. He did cry out when the maintenance feller crushed his legs with the plywood. But no biggie, right. It’s only a squirrel. And what’s one less squirrel in your life? I nearly started to cry myself.

Finally, after everyone in the newsroom came to get a glimpse of Mario, the maintenance feller and Emily J. Nelson, Jr., Esq., our inimitable photog, headed outside to release Mario to the wilds of City Hall Park. He took a few hestitant steps and then rejoined nature, and hopefully his mommy. And then we all went back to work.

This is a photo of freedom. I love you, Mario. Godspeed, lad.

Photos by Emily Nelson.