Hoping for a quiet and peaceful home life, our arts editor has made his home in the suburbs of Owen Sound for over 30 years now. And thus far the plan had worked. It had worked well, in fact, up until last October.

It was during the beginning of that soft month when winter's woes were merely threat and far from substance, that our editor experienced a home invasion, of the rodent kind.

Having left his basement windows open for several days in order to take advantage of the civil and temperate weather being experienced at the time, he had almost decided that the basement had been thoroughly aired and was ready for the closed and unventilated months to come.

He had almost decided that, but not quite. While working diligently away at his duties for the Hub one afternoon, he slowly became aware of a noise. It was the noise of another living being, being busy in his house. Not a human being, mind you, for what kind of human being would go around scratching at the underside of the floor beneath ones feet without speaking up about it first? No, this was clearly an invasion of the rodent type.

At this time it must be pointed out that our arts editor had no idea what type of rodent it was that had made its way into his home, nor did he have any idea how it had managed access. Given these details to be true, and we must assume they are for he has written this himself, it behooves us to remark upon his bravery, for all he knew it could have been a full fledged beaver invasion. And who wants to have to come face to teeth with a beaver in one's pyjamas, or in anything else from one's wardrobe that the beaver might choose to wear.

But was our arts editor unnerved? Shaken? Afraid? ... well, yes, but still he continued to work diligently on delivering Hub article after Hub article until his day was done.

In fact it wasn't until the virtual offices of this very magazine you are now reading, this illuminating beacon of information for complicated times, had been closed up and the virtual lights turned off for the day, that our brave arts editor made his way down into the basement of his home to investigate the source of the noise. He discovered holes in the only ceiling in the basement that had been finished in ceiling tiles. The room that this ceiling was part of was adjacent to the furnace room, a small service room with an unfinished ceiling and, coincidentally an open window.

Now, in fairness to the arts editor, he never opened the window and left it as an invitation to any beavers or other ferocious rodents that might have been passing by. It was in fact blocked, quite adequately in his opinion, with a screen, as was the window in the room with the ceiling damage. And upon further investigation, the window in the room with the damaged ceiling still had its screen securely in place.

Suddenly, a noise in the ceiling indicated that the invader was not only still present, but was in fact just above our dear editor's head. He immediately engaged in a manly shout of authority in order to inform the wily porcupine (or whatever it was) of the error of his assumption of welcome. (It is true that neighbours have suggested the manly roar was more of a scream of terror, but they were probably in fear of the porcupine also and so their mistake is easily forgiven.)

The culprit made its way quickly, the intrepid editor determined by the scurrying sounds it made, through the ceiling and gave away its method of access by entering the furnace room by way of the main floor joist space.

Our brave arts editor threw open the door to the furnace room and observed, through a crack in his fingers which he had thrown over his eyes to protect himself from potential skunk spray, the bushy black tail of a squirrel slipping through a tear in the screening of the furnace room window.

With one hand still covering his eyes (just because you've seen a squirrel doesn't mean there are no skunks), he bravely felt his way to the window and slammed it shut, throwing the lock and putting an end to the invaders means of entry.

Was this the end of the home invasion? Stay tuned for next week's installment to find out.

Update: The second half of this story is now available here.