Ok I am about to tell you a story that you might not believe but I swear every word of it is true. This is something that happened last fall while I was house/dog-sitting for my parents and for some reason today I remembered the whole thing and sat at my desk giggling like a mental person so I decided to share. Let me go back and start at the beginning.
Every year in October my parents, The Wart (mom) and The Wanderer (my dad because when he gets in the car to drive and that is what he does, he wanders on all of the back roads), go on a long vacation so Tooters and I basically move into their house for a couple weeks. They have two of the most spoiled dogs in the world and they are used to having dog doors so that they can come and go as they please. Well last time they were out of town I thought it would be easier to take the two dogs to my house so that me and Tooters could sleep in our own comfy bed. Let me tell you how wrong I was! The dogs kept wanting out, then I tried to sleep in my queen bed with Tooters, the Wonder Pup, and The Warts two dogs, well needless to say we moved to the other house the next day. Plus The Warts littlest dog Sugarbooger decided that she was going to show the Wonder Pup and Dusty-Do how to escape from my yard and run all over the neighborhood. Sugarbooger the escape artist is no longer allowed at my house because she is a bad influence on the Wonder Pup.
Anyways as the parents were leaving for vacation they told me that something is digging holes all over the front yard and they think it is a skunk so they set a trap for it and left town. My whole life we have been catching skunks in the yard because for some reason they think that The Wanderer built the shed just for them to live in, so this was no big deal for me. This was on a Friday and by the time we all went to bed and finished fighting for room in the bed I forgot about the trap outside.
The next morning we get up went about doing the usual lazy Saturday morning stuff, still not thinking about the trap in the front yard. Honestly I would not have even looked at it if Tooters wouldn’t have come screaming through the house that we caught something. She was so excited that Santa Claus could have been in that thing. So I restrained the three dogs the best that I could and went out in front to investigate the trap and sure enough there was something in it. I had to take a double take before I realized that we did not catch the usual cat or skunk it was a freakin’ raccoon and boy was he pissed off.
After I dragged Tooters away from it, she thought she could keep it as a pet and wanted to pet it in the worst way. I called the Sheriff’s office dispatch to have the dog catcher to come and get it. Well I got told that they do not work on the weekends any more and that I would either have to let it go and try to catch it during the week or leave it there until Monday. I decided that I would just give it some food and water then wait for Monday morning to come. Who ever heard of pests like this one only being able to be caught during the week. It is not like I can schedule an appointment with it. The thing I worried about was that I could not catch it again. I know if I went to eat some food and ended up in a cage I would stay the hell away from it after that. Tooters was thrilled at the idea of keeping it all weekend and out into the front yard we went to feed it some dog food and put some water down. As we approached the cage I thought it had been moved but quickly dismissed that idea, after all who would come into the yard just to move a cage, that is just silly. We finished up and went back in the house.
Later that day Tooters came in and told me that someone moved the cage again, I just thought she was teasing me so I just laughed it off. After a while I got to thinking, what if someone really was messing with us and moved the cage?? So back out into the yard we went and sure enough the cage was several feet from where it was originally. There was something about this that was just not right so I decided to keep a closer eye on it and try to catch the prankster.
After hours of watching I finally caught the culprit. IT WAS THE DAMN RACOON!!!!!! That sucker was putting its feet through the little holes, standing up and walking around the yard with the cage on its back until it tripped. Then it would tumble and roll a couple of time, look up stunned then start walking again. First thing I did was call The Wart and The Wanderer but all they could tell me was that I was nuts. They actually thought I was either on something or joking until Tooters told them the same thing several hours later.
The rest of the weekend was spent at the front window watching this thing walk all over the yard. I tried to video tape it but just my luck the battery was dead and I could not find the cord to recharge it. I guess I am just not meant to win the 10,000 on AFV.
Well Monday came and with it the animal control to retrieve our entertaining racoon. You know to this day everytime I see a racoon on TV or in a magazine I can just picture the cage on top of it walking around the yard for two days.
Incase anyone is curious we later found out that it is birds digging the holes and not the racoon. Poor thing was hauled off, but not in vein because it provided a lot of hours of entertainment that is not found on TV. So good-bye my weekend friend I hope you are enjoying your new home.
Single Mom World 