Why I hate squirels version eleventy million and one

This morning I had a plan. Back Seat Girl and I were going to go to the grocery store. I even cleaned out the fridge yesterday. I pretty much have plans for the rest of the week, so it's very important to my anal mind that I do everything according to schedule so I get everything done by this weekend that I want to get done.

After several fits about not wanting to go to the grocery store at all, then about what to wear, and then about how many times she could make me read the Elephant Book, we were finally ready to go out the door. We even had our coats on. Then, suddenly, there was a loud boom, and the house grew eerily quiet. No electricity. A squirrel had decided to barbeque himself on a transformer in the alley. No big deal, I figured. We're going to the grocery store, and hopefully by the time or soon after we get home we'll have electricity. This was not the first time this had happened at our house.

So, Back Seat Girl and I made our way out to the garage. Not thinking, I punched in our code, and of course the garage door didn't go up. Duh, I thought to myself. I tried the regular door so I could get into the garage and unlock the big door and push it up manually. It was, of course, locked. I realized I didn't have a key, so I went inside and found our stash of "what the heck are these for?" keys. I found the one for the doorknob lock, but it turns out that Driver had locked the bolt lock, too. So, I found the one for the bolt lock, and it just turned uselessly without ever really engaging the lock. I said some expletives under my breath, then I called Driver. This was obviously his fault, since he's the one that's all paranoid about the garage getting broken into and we had never locked the bolt lock before, for reasons that were obvious to me now.

I looked over at Back Seat Girl. She was all ready to go. I had finally convinced her it was a good idea to go to the grocery store, and now my car was trapped in the garage. We couldn't just go back in the house, I knew she'd throw a fit about that. I decided we could walk to the park. We both had to walk, since our strollers are all in the garage. You can all imagine how long it took us to get there. It was actually OK, she was a good girl about holding my hand. She had a great time at the park, but when it came time to go home she announced she was too tired to run anymore, so I ended up carrying her most of the way home. When we got back the Excel truck was outside our house. The guy got out of the truck and said we should have power and asked me to go inside to check. Sure enough, power was restored. After confirming my squirel suspicions, he was on his way. However, it was too late for the grocery store. I had already told Back Seat Girl that we could go to the "bagel store" for lunch since I wouldn't have any way of heating up anything for us at home, and there is no going back on a promise like that.

So, squirel, I hope you're happy. While I'm happy you won't be digging up my lawn anymore looking for some stupid acorn you buried yesterday and now your tiny brain can't recall exactly where, I wish you could've just run underneath a car like so many of your departed brethren instead of screwing up my whole day by frying yourself on the electricity that it turns out I use for EVERYTHING.