Lessons learned

If you live in an old house, there may come a time when you hear interesting noises coming from the garage, the attic, or the crawl space beneath your house. As I have recently found myself in this situation, let me offer the following suggestions on how to handle this. Feel free to follow any or all of those listed.

1. Assume that these are just "old house noises" and mean absolutely nothing (this is also known as denial).
2. Call your friend for help in dealing with this, because although you are "fairly independent" and "not particularly girly when it comes to bugs and such", you cannot deal with any critter that could actually be making these noises.
3. Buy mouse traps, spend ten minutes figuring out how to set them, then set them in the kitchen and carry them into the garage.
4. Notice your dog is staring intently at the ceiling, decide that you should set traps in the attic, and once again, set the traps in the kitchen and carry them into the garage and up the ladder into the attic.
5. Have a weird dream about your friend telling you to just throw your dog up the ladder into the attic to deal with whatever it is.
   
6. Have even weirder friends who find humor in odd mental pictures of you sitting in your attic with a coonskin cap and a rifle.
7. Decide the noises are too loud to just be a mouse and spend way too much on a cage trap for a squirrel.
8. Actually go up into your attic with a flashlight and thoroughly investigate every corner.
9. Close the window that has most likely been open since the last time anyone was really up in the attic.
   

I recommend that last one.