Never, Ever Feed Raccoons

I hadn’t intended for things to turn out this way.  In fact, I hadn’t even imagined such a thing was possible!  But there I was, standing in the middle of the living room surrounded by muddy animal tracks, looking out into a yard strewn with garbage from one corner to the other.

Mop in hand, I began the task ahead but jumped back when movement in the huge stone fireplace caught me by surprise.  As I watched, a large black snake dropped to the ashy floor and slithered out across the rough hewn stone hearth to the wood plank floor, adding his own sidewinding trail to the mud and dust.  My husband cornered the snake with a box as the children screamed and ran.  Once the offending creature was removed, I began again.

As I mopped, I tried to recall the events that had brought me to this point.  We had just moved out to the country and my children had never seen raccoons before.  We’d heard there was a family of them living in the woods behind out house so I thought it would be fun for the children to see them up close.  One evening after dinner I set out a small plate of scraps, left the porch light on, and kept watch out the kitchen window.  Soon, a large raccoon stealthily crossed the yard in the shadow of the black walnut tree and began nibbling at the snack.

The children watched in fascination as the animal picked up the pieces of vegetable from the plate and held them up to his mouth.  Soon the show was over and the raccoon headed back to the woods, leaving the empty plate licked clean.

When I opened the door to retrieve the plate, the trouble began.  Two raccoons rushed down from the shadows and slipped past me into the kitchen.  I let out a yelp as three smaller raccoons, babies, followed their parents into the house. 

“Help!” I cried, summoning my dozing husband from the sofa.

“What in the world are you doing?” he demanded as he walked into the kitchen and came face to face with the business end of my broom.  His look of confusion turned to horror and then humor as the reality of my predicament settled into his consciousness.

“Only you,” he gasped between peels of laughter.  “Only you could let a family of raccoons invade the kitchen.”

Sadly, the kitchen wasn’t the only room the beasts invaded.  As they tried to escape my efforts to shoo them out the door, they leapt the counter tops, stopped briefly to snack on some leftovers on the stove, and then continued their whirlwind tour down the hallway, into the living room, and on through the master bedroom.

“Get out!” I wailed, wielding my broom and thrusting it in their direction. 

The children came running to see the commotion and stood in the doorway squealing with delight as the five raccoons ran laps around the living room, catapulted from the arms of the sofa, swung on the chandelier, and scurried back into the kitchen, out the door, and up the hill from whence they came.

I slammed the kitchen door, rattling the windows and catching the curtains in the hinges, but I didn’t care.  The raccoons were out of the house and I was left with a mess.

I could hear my husband shushing the children’s laughter in the living room as he tried to conceal his own amusement.  My distress was interrupted by a crash just beyond the secured kitchen door.  Peering out the window I counted ten large raccoons running about the yard.  They had overturned the garbage cans and pulled the smelly contents out across the lawn.  Bags and cans littered the garden as wisps of shredded paper towel floated on the breeze like snowflakes.  A bottle shattered on the porch step as it fell from the snout of the animal licking out its contents.

“It’s times like these I wish I had a big dog!” I shouted.  A cackle arose from the doorway and my husband stood there doubled over with laughter.  I shook my broom in his direction as I surveyed the condition of my home.

Muddy footprints covered the wood floors as well as the sofa and the dining table.  Mud and ashes were ground into the area rug by the door.  With a sigh I went to gather cleaning supplies, knowing I could only dispose of the mess inside until morning.

“What’s that?” my daughter asked, listening carefully.

Scurrying footsteps traversed the roof and scratching noises came from the fireplace.  Moments later, the black snake dropped to the floor with a thud, sending an ashy cloud out into the room and the children running for their bedrooms as Tim corralled it with a box.

With the excitement ended, the children went to bed and I wiped and mopped, and swept long into the night.  In the morning, I cleaned up the yard.  In the process, I found several good footprints in the mud and made plaster casts of them to show the children.

I had learned my first lesson about living in the country:  never, ever feed raccoons.

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