Squirrel took wild ride – in our car

After returning from a recent medical appointment, my husband and I had an interesting encounter with a furry friend.
We stopped our car at our end destination and heard a strange chattering noise coming from under the hood. I thought something was wrong with the engine and asked my husband if he could hear anything. After listening very carefully, my husband determined it sounded like a squirrel.
Since I am not very brave with squirrels, I did not want to look under the hood. I kept visualizing some of the recent squirrel advertisements I had seen and did not want to be attacked by a squirrel.
My husband is a much braver person than I am and decided to investigate. He opened the hood and could see indeed there was a squirrel by the engine manifold. He determined it was a red fox squirrel.
My husband got in the car and honked the horn several times, but still the squirrel chattered on. He then found a broom and he poked around the squirrel with the broom handle to try to chase him out, but still the squirrel remained in the car. Of course, by this time, the squirrel was chattering much more rapidly than he had been.
I then decided to take my turn at trying to get the squirrel to come out from under the hood of the car. With the hood still open, I started the engine and honked the horn several times. The squirrel still would not come out. I then drove the car forward and backward several times, stopping very suddenly in between. The squirrel continued to chatter.
I then sat with the car stopped for a short time, contemplating what we should do next. We were worried about our chattering friend chewing wires and causing other extensive damage to our car.
Just when I was not sure if we were ever going to be able to get rid of the squirrel, up popped the squirrel’s head – followed by his body. He sat on top of the engine, turned his head and stared at me. I looked at him and quickly honked the horn several times. He took one last look at me, jumped off the engine and ran off in the opposite direction as us. We were very thankful to see our furry friend travelling as fast as his legs could run in the opposite direction from us.
We later determined the squirrel must have travelled with us on the road for at least 10 miles or more. We are still amazed he was alive and not injured – except for the wild ride he took.