Colin McNickle At Large

Weekend essay: Fishing for a squirrel’s nest

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The embarrassment no longer could be contained in the dark confines of the chimney. For the chimney sweep was coming and there was no way the mistake could be hidden. Exposure was nigh. Woe be the reputation of the guy who went fishing for a squirrel’s nest.

 

During an uncharacteristically cool late June night, a small fire was set in the fireplace to take off the chill. But even though it was well into the low 50s, the old workhorse, a nifty combination of old stone and new ceramic, wasn’t drawing well.

 

There was that signature curl of smoke slithering out from under the top of the arch. And the more the fire became engaged, the less the smoke was being evacuated. The flames required a quick dousing.

 

The next day, it became apparent what the problem was. Closing and opening the chimney-top flu repeatedly resulted in a steady shower of moderately sized sticks from the front-yard maple. Ah ha! A crafty squirrel had built a nest.

 

Up and down the flu chain was worked, over and over again. More debris. Surely it was enough to have cleared the chimney. Another small fire set as a test quickly disproved the theory of the junior chimney-clearing engineer.

 

Not to be outdone by a pesky squirrel’s nest, a new tack would be needed. Ah ha! The JCCE (the junior chimney-clearing engineer, remember?) devised a great plan:

 

Four old fishing poles were taped together (sans the reels, obviously). Then, some sturdy but flexible bamboo poles were added to the bottom of the stack to reach the chimney’s top.

 

Slowly fished up — and vigorously swished around – more and more squirrel nest debris dislodged, falling into the firebox.

 

Ah ha! Success, the JCCE thought to himself. A great sense of satisfaction overcoming him, he almost wished he had been wearing braces to snap them in self-congratulation.
Until… .

All of a sudden, that stack of bamboo poles topped by those four fishing rods became a lot lighter. Out came the bamboo poles — sans their fishing counterparts. Drats! The tape had not held. And those rods now were stuck, more than halfway up the chimney.

 

The only solution now was to schedule the annual August cleaning and give the fella who’s been doing the job for two decades a head’s up as to what the dummkopf had done.

 

“OK,” he deadpanned on the phone in his thick Balkan accent. “We’ll see what we’ll see in August.”

 

Long pole story short, the sweep came last month. He was reminded of the fishing expedition and got on with the job. He spoke not a word but went straight to his work. (Oh, sorry, wrong guy. Ahem.)

 

It didn’t take long for the expert to fish out the wayward poles. But he couldn’t let me off the hook without a few good-natured theatrics.

 

As the first pole fell into the firebox, he gave me a bemused look. He pulled on the bottom pole to reveal the second, the third and finally, the fourth, pausing with each new pole to give me a different version of that same look.

 

His comedic timing was impeccable. A final headshake sealed my embarrassment.
It would be tempting to say that the moral of the story is –if you must go fishing up your chimney to clear a squirrel’s nest — to use a better quality tape.

 

But the better moral of the story is to first call somebody who knows what he’s doing and avoid being charged a premium for embarrassing yourself.

 

Colin McNickle is a senior fellow and media specialist at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).

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Colin McNickle
Colin McNickle

Colin received his B.G.S. from Ohio University. The 40-year journalism veteran joined the Institute in October 2016. That followed a 22-year career with the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, 18 as director of editorial pages for Trib Total Media. Prior that, Colin had a long and varied career in media — from radio, newspapers and magazines, to United Press International and The Associated Press.

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