Fighting with my husband about a squirrel

I have named him Neil and I have let him down.

My husband and I had one of our biggest fights about a squirrel today. It’s never about the squirrel is it? The squirrel could be old socks on the floor, an unpaid bill, a harsh tone. Something small sets one of you off and before you know it you’re aiming the most contemptuous language possible towards the person you love.

Except this really was about a squirrel.

There has been a squirrel living in the flat roof above our shower for six months now. We see it from the window, slinking up beneath the gutter and wriggling into an unseen crack. I watch it pop out and hear it scrabble around in the unseen wall as I wash. My husband has become concerned by the squirrel. It will eat through wires, he tells me. It might destroy the water pipes. There are articles about this, a woman who had to move out of her house for six months, such was the damage done by one of these critters. The advice offered online is stern: you must get rid of the squirrel before it gets rid of you.