August 5, 2008


I’m in love

with a drunken raccoon.

Seriously. Sunday night before last, maybe it was, I was camped out on the tailgate of the Honda Element just, you know, hanging out in the parking lot in the middle of the night, listening to a raccoon banging around in a garbage bin in The Shed, chittering and chirping and snarling and grumbling. (What the raccoons do, you see, come Sunday night, is they dive into dumpsters stuffed with weekend detritus — stale pizza, puddles of flat Bud Light — and let the good times roll. They get drunk in there. I just know they do. And I was . . . well, I was just out there loitering and waiting for the party to commence.)


Well, after a while I shifted my base of operations into the driver’s seat. Kept the door open so I could hear anything worth hearing, and lo! before long I heard a little mewing sound. I thought it was my cat, Lena (who was out prowling and for all I knew looking to pick fights with raccoons). “Hey, girl,” I said, as I looked down to the pavement –and there, less than a foot away, was a raccoon. I just know he was drunk.

He murmured something indistinct, then waddled off. Five minutes later, though, he returned — and just peered up at me with that little bandit face.

I had my camera-phone right to hand, but I just couldn’t bring myself to flash a blinding light into his eyes, so you’ll have to take my word for it. He was fixing to jump into the Element with me, I just know it.

And all this past week I’ve been trying to gain his trust. At night I go out by The Shed and coo terms of endearment. I’ve no idea where I want this relationship to go, but I do know that I am in love with a drunken raccoon.

posted by Sheila Ryan in alcohol, animals, relationships 

comments

5 Responses to “I’m in love”

  1. Cooper Renner on August 5th, 2008 at 10:14 am

    Sheila’s got the raccoon. I’ve got the feral bunny. Do Elements simply attract wayward animals?

    (PS: Sheila sits on her tailgate to enjoy the middle of the night. I sit on mine after supper to read Barchester Towers or whatever.)

  2. Sheila Ryan on August 5th, 2008 at 11:11 am

    Cooper, though neither you nor I have ever gone in for the tailgate party as traditionally understood, we have our own ways of enjoying the opportunities presented by a tailgate.

  3. Phil Bebbington on August 25th, 2008 at 12:06 pm

    Well, I don’t have a tailgate but I guess I could interpret it as my ass and it is said that I spend an awful amount of time sat on that. Can I join the tailgate club?…Please!

  4. Sheila Ryan on August 25th, 2008 at 8:24 pm

    You may not have a tailgate, but you have achieved a tailgate state of mind.

  5. Love Update : clusterflock on September 30th, 2008 at 11:56 am

    [...] I am still in love with a drunken raccoon. [...]

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