The other night, I was sitting at the table eating dinner–at 7 p.m. to be exact, and that’s important because it was still bright as day outside–when I heard a scratching at the screen door.
My cat, the divine Ms. Sally O’Mally [who likes to kick and stretch and kick] is constantly using the [nasty-looking] vertical blinds [that I really, really need to clean but don't know how to take down/am too lazy to figure out how to mess with] as scratching posts of sorts, so without looking up from the newspaper I was reading, I swatted in the general direction of the screen door and said, softly, “Knock it off, Sal.”
A few minutes later, it happened again, and again I muttered, “Quit scratching” and did another absent-minded swat.
Finally, the third time, I turned toward the screen door to physically pull the cat off the blinds.
But she wasn’t there.
She was across the room, curled up a chair.
Something was on the other side of the screen door, scratching to get in.
Carefully, I approached the door and pulled back the blinds. And there sat the fattest, most complacent looking raccoon staring up at me from the deck.
“Blehhh!” I hollered, completely startled (and, then, afraid the thing had rabies or something, since it was out so early at night and so unafraid to come up so close).
Then again, word on the street—literally, as in, amongst the few neighbors in my little villa—is that an old lady who used to live here until she died a few years ago used to feed raccoons in the neighborhood.
Not to speak ill of the dead or anything, but… thanks, lady.
Anyway, I clapped my hands and stomped and made other idiotic motions, but it still just sat there, looking at me with big dumb eyes.
This little scene repeated itself a few times, and then the fat little beast lumbered away–and then scurried underneath my deck.
Where I’m afraid it is now living.
Before this episode, I’d already been wondering if there wasn’t something furry trying to make a home a little too close to mine.
Twice this spring I found little piles of swirly-looking poop on the deck, and it was right up against the house, so whatever left it there was obviously feeling comfortable.
Then I found a perfectly paw-sized swoop taken out of one of the pots in which I’m attempting to grow tomatoes. (Last year, something—probably this same little booger, who knows) stole the one tomato I was able to successfully grow.)
I wasn’t that concerned about the raccoon taking up residence under my porch until I mentioned it at work and someone said, “You better hope it’s not a female. You don’t want her having babies down there.”
Another person at work suggested that I place mothballs under the deck. Apparently raccoons don’t like the smell any more than we do when we are given the Guest Linens at Grandma’s.
But now I can’t decide what to do.
First of all, the moth balls I have on hand aren’t really moth balls, but little packets of lavender-scented moth-ball-like tablets. Which, frankly, seem a little too expensive to drop between the slats on my deck.
So do I make a Wal-Mart run for actual, cheap-o, stinky mothballs? Or would it be just as expensive, with gas prices, to run to the store for this, when the lavender ones would be just fine? Is the moth ball trick even going to work?
And aside from my own annoyance with errand-running… I suppose the bigger question is, what if some other, dumber animal tries to eat the mothballs? I’m still feeling guilty enough, as it is, about my recent roadkill incident.
And if something died down there, I’d really be screwed.
Tags: humor, nature, rural_life
I have no advice on how to get rid of your new friend, but I do offer extreme sympathy for your situation because raccoons totally freak me out. Like I have nightmares about them.
Yes! coons freak me out too how they walk all hunch backed yuk! However I would go ahead and live with your little friend instead of killing him with mothballs, if it dies under your porch your house will smell worst than when you ran over a skunk in the Boat.