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I 'd spent two weeks on a beach. Watching the tides. Baking in the sun. Getting back to what's real. Getting grounded. Shedding all worldly stress. Finding my inner beach bum. Becoming a butter y, at one with the universe. To the point where, by holiday's end, I honestly believed I had not simply relaxed, but had permanently shed all the uptight, stressed-out, Type A bonds of my personality and replaced them with a brand new me. Indeed, I believed I was set to foray into the future as a super-chill Zen dude -- a guy so darn chill and zen, medical moguls would marvel that I barely had a pulse. Or.... OK, so we left the beach at 7 a.m. and arrived home at midnight, 17 straight-hours of driving, through which I remained superchill and Zen, even when we drove up our laneway and nearly dropped an axle in one of a plethora of potholes. My wife, whose car we were driving and who was altogether un-chill after the long drive, got slightly stressed over the whole nearly dropped axle thing, but I placed a nger across her lips and whispered: "Sweet Flower, shhhhh. Just be at one with the potholes for they, too, are part of this sparkling universe." When she glared at me, I assured her I'd be on the phone to `The Pothole Guy' just as soon as the next day dawned. The next day dawned and I went about re- How a super-chill dude deals with an attic invasion That's Life Andy Juniper Guest Contributor 17 | Thursday, May 12, 2016 | OAKVILLE BEAVER | www.insideHALTON.com acquainting myself with our house. Sure, it was a little messy. I mean, our kids did their best to keep it clean, but offspringclean and parent-clean are two very different things. Still, I remained admirably super-chill and Zen and left the mess, and the piled-up laundry, and the grass that had grown knee-high, and the problem of the pond that was leaking, and the two weeks of work I'd missed, to go do my morning meditation. Which was interrupted -- heart-stoppingly severed, actually -- by squeals. From what sounded like the devil. Coming through the walls of our yoga room. As time went on, the sounds became more screechy than squeal-y. Like something was being murdered. Slowly. And with each screech, I felt something odd inching up my spine. It felt like, I dunno, tension? Apprehension? Anxiousness? I called my pals at pest control -- we own a country home; we're on a rst-name basis with the pest people -- who arrived, exam- ined thoroughly, and proclaimed I'd be needing to secure a fth mortgage. We had raccoons in the attic. Mentally, I'd already taken out another mortgage, to pay for the laneway re-grading, and the pond, and... But never mind. I knew we couldn't live with the little devils in our walls, so I handed over my credit card and told them to get rid of those critters. At the very least, get them out of my attic and drive them far, far away. It was then I learned about the kinder, gentler, more humane ways of modern-day raccoon removal. How you don't drive them away anymore (that's against regulations), you just get them out and hope they can't nd a way back in. And if they do return? Hey, a sixth mortgage is always an option. Confession. I'm no longer a butter y. I'm no longer at one with the stupid universe. Reality has set in. 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