These “safer at home” and “shelter in place” and “don’t leave the doggone house because the virus might not affect you, but it will affect the li’l ol’ lady down the street if you breathe on her” orders have been wearing on all of us.

Apparently, so much so that we’ve arrived at the point where we’re all shut-ins and starting to go crazy.

Let me explain. I’ll start with an update to the critters I allegedly heard in the attic a few weeks ago.

It’s possible the critter outsmarted the traps, so I had to call a second exterminator.

That guy was considerably more expensive, but he showed up with an entire team of experts who spent the entire day rootin’ through my attic to find whatever was scurrying across my ceiling.

Then they sealed up all the potential entry points.

They said squirrels were probably coming and going through small gaps between the roof and walls or a spot where the area around a pipe wasn’t completely sealed.

Turns out, though, I wasn’t hearing critters.

My house is nearly 100 years old. I was actually hearing ghosts of critters.

“Still holding on that explanation, Scaia.”

The Critter Control fella explained that the squirrels had probably been getting into my attic for the entire time I’ve owned the house. I was only hearing them more because I was spending more time at home. He had been swamped with calls since the stay-at-home orders began.

Apparently, the critters were getting restless with all these humans gettin’ up in their space during the day.

That brings us to the meat of this hard-hitting blog: Ghosts are apparently also getting restless. They’ve had it with having to mince around in the dead of night. They’re taking back what’s theirs.

This picture appears in a New York Times‘ article dealing with the ghost uprising. I feel like that caption smacks of someone who’s questioning the assignment and whether journalists are starting to tire of the constant grind of finding “new angles” of the coronavirus story.

“A suspicious towel?! What a scoop!”

Also, “I’m a fairly rational person” is exactly what a completely irrational person would say.

Mr. Gomez, quoted in that article, sounds successful and reasonable. But, ironically, that quote seems to make him sound less rational because he’s pointing it out.

I may start working that into casual discussions.

“I’m a fairly rational person,” I’ll explain. “But I’d prefer chicken for dinner tonight over tacos.”

A more exciting conclusion to that article would have been, when Ms. Hill found her camera lens on the nightstand at her apartment in Italy, the ghost of Benito Mussolini showed up and said, laughing, “Well it’s always in the last place you look!”

Then an American soldier hits him from behind with a bayonet.

Here’s the show: The ghost of Benito Mussolini is constantly stirring up trouble, but then he gets his comeuppance from Allied soldiers at the end of the episode. I’m still waiting on that call from Les Moonves. Maybe I should be expecting a call from someone else, given that he doesn’t, technically, work for CBS anymore.

Turns out, though, the camera lens may have put itself on the nightstand. We’re all working from home, but that doesn’t mean I have too much time on my hands. Having said that, I stumbled on an article that suggests animals are not the only things that are self-aware.

The camera lens may have consciously been aware that its owner had been missing it and placed itself in her field of view. Because we’re all, like, aware, man.

Maybe the first exterminator really didn’t experience any squirrels because they did not exist in his field of experience.

I am a fairly rational person. I just need to call an old priest and a young priest to exorcise the ghosts of the squirrels in my attic.