How to catch a squirrel (in your dreams)

I suffer from crippling bouts of early morning insomnia. People offer suggestions such as “limit screen time before bed” or “stop being so crazy” but still my eyes fly open regularly at 3am. I have a patented move I call Pillow Cloud™ whereby I fold mine in half and wrap it around my head, leaving a small hole for breathing, and sometimes this buys me a weird dream or two. The cat usually recognizes it as a kind of shield and will not step on me to initiate Food-Time Wakeup™, though sometimes the sensors get clogged with feathers or the two devices otherwise do not communicate. 

The bonus of early morning insomnia are the dreams when I do manage to fall back to sleep. The other night I dreamt there was a squirrel in my basement and I had a dickens of a time catching it with my bare hands. When I finally grabbed hold long enough to open the door and fling it into the backyard, I noticed a woman catching another squirrel in a much more effective, professional manner. The trick was, it seems, grabbing a squirrel by its ears, at which point it becomes docile and compliant. It was certainly my subconscious’ knockoff of the way a cat carries kittens. (translation: please don’t try it at home but if you do, comment in great detail about the experience.)

clever squirrel wins your money and evades capture

The dream, lazy as my subconscious is, was born of an incident the night before involving a cricket in our basement. In the time I went upstairs to get something to catch it in, the cat was all over it in wild chase. I did manage to wrestle the cricket away and release it outside, saving its life and our indoor sanity, but no doubt depriving the cat of a little fun. This might explain all the early morning stepping-on. 

This morning in my facebook feed, I saw the following update: “I found a squirrel in my car!”

Another update from a different person read: “I’m getting a pet monkey!”

In both cases, I believe the exclamation points are warranted and not just braggadocious. (not recognized by spellcheck. FYI.) Both updates were from people I went to high school with and just saw at our 25 year reunion. I’m not sure what it all means except it’s hard to feel accomplished when others are literally living your dreams.