Yesterday, sometime around 4:50 a.m., I was awakened by the sound of a scuffle outside my bedroom and a bit of hissing. This is a fairly normal occurrence when you have two cats who alternate between snuggling while they lick each otherâs buttholes and attempting to reenact War of the Roses.
I rolled over in bed and thought nothing of it. But then Watson made a noise Iâd never heard come out of him before and something clattered loudly enough to make me jump, so I stumbled out of bed and clicked on the light to see what the hell was going on. Maybe he and Teddy were playing Jenga and Watsonâs just a really sore loser.
So I shuffle out the dining/kitchen area like a George Romero character wearing nothing but a ratty camisole and underwear, blinking around bleary-eyed without my contacts or glasses. The cats actually playing Jenga probably would have surprised me less than what I saw.
Thereâs a raccoon sitting on my dining room table.
We just kind of stared at each other for a minute, me blinking at him and squinting and hoping that Iâm either still asleep or that maybe Watson had somehow gotten into my eyeliner and developed a really puffy tail overnight. He (Iâm assuming it was male, because of course a man would do this) tilted his head as he took me in but otherwise didnât move.
ââŚwhat,â I said. Iâm still proud of that.
And then Watson hissed again, and while it still wasnât enough to snap me out of my disbelieving stupor I realize that both of my cats are hunched on the floor, staring at this raccoon, utterly terrified, and then I forget how cute raccoons are and remember itâs a wild fucking animal and that rabies are a thing and Iâm trying to remember how many humans have actually survived the Milwaukee Protocol, and Iâm standing between this adorable masked bandit with very sharp teeth and his only route out of the house.
Then it hissed at me. Did you know raccoons could hiss? I didnât. Itâs messed up. Itâs also the moment my brain shifted from âWTF is happeningâ to âoh, fuck you, buddy.â
Trying to keep an eye on everything and praying the animals didnât start attacking each other, I back up and prop open the door leading out to the garage and contemplate my next move. I didnât have a harpoon handy, so I went for the next-best thing I could find without actually leaving my cats alone with this apparently angry fluff-demon - a cat toy, one of those things thatâs a long stick with a string and a squeaking mouse hanging off of it.
I wrapped up the string in my hand so it wasnât dangling and held this little two-foot plastic stick in my hand and approached, trying to get around the damn table so I can have a good angle to chase him out of the house. I held this little stick like a fencing foil between us, and the whole time he didnât move. He just stared.
At this point I realize Iâll actually have to scare this thing to get it to move. I wave the stick like a magic wand (âRaccus exumai!â). He hissed in response.
Had I not been half-blind, half-naked, and half-asleep, I probably would have realized that poking it would be a bad idea. I was none of those things, so I poked, and it actually jumped down from the table and sauntered - fucking sauntered - into the living room and over the couch before it realized that yes, I was driving him towards the door and yes, I meant business, so it humored me with this shitty little smirk and went along its way.
Once in the garage, I realized how heâd gotten in - Iâd forgotten to shut the door that night and the latch on the actual door to the inside of the house was iffy, so the wily little bastard pushed his way in - and Iâm getting more and more angry about how casual heâs acting over being chased out. No scurrying away at top speed for this insolent little hobgoblin, noooo. He waddled away at medium speed while I shooed him into the yard and prayed to every god in existence that none of my neighbors get up too early because Iâm barefoot and scantily-clad and havenât shaved my legs since the Bush administration.
When heâs finally gone I go inside and lock up and check on my traumatized cats (spoiler: they werenât happy, especially with me). Just as Iâm about to go to bed, the smell hits me. Iâm still half-blind and pretty sure Iâm the victim of some elaborate prank, but my nose leads me to the source, and all I can do is sigh.
In addition to taking up residence on my dining room table, the raccoon elected to take a giant shit on it as well.
So thatâs how my week started. And raccoons are assholes.
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