Raccoons

This is a personal entry for me. This is about raccoons.

Growing up in rural Michigan, I didn't have much experience with fancy big-city animals like all you sophisticates out there in the suburbs. Sure, there was the occasional garter snake trying to suffocate me in my sandbox or the yearly deer revolt that usually took place during the county fair, when we were all drunk on cotton candy and 4H ribbons. Sometimes a box turtle would get confused during its land hibernation and drag a young local back into the lake for breeding. And there were the mice. My god, the mice: in the walls, in the kitchen, in my little sister's Barbie house, in the toe of my mother's 1970s brown naugahyde boot. But these were normal country occurrences, and we learned to deal with them.

Later, when I made my way out into the world, I realized that the animals of my youth were child's play. Later, I found out about raccoons.

Raccoons, the succubuses of the animal world. One day they are sharing Zimas and cuttlefish chips with you on the fire escape out back, the next day they are in your bed, sucking your soul.

I had come to New York City like so many young Midwestern girls, dreaming of becoming a Rockette and eventually settling down with a nice middle-aged couple from Long Island. "Athletic" thighs and an enthusiasm for Puerto Rican boys soon quashed these dreams, and I found myself financially and spiritually broken and in need of a roommate. When I saw the Craigslist posting from Bandit7, I hesitated - after all, I was from Middle America - but I was determined to rise above my speciesist roots and give it a try.

Living with Bandit was fun at first. She was furry! She was crafty! She was so stripy and cute! When I was hungry, she found me food. She was small and didn't give me a hard time about cleaning up. She knew all the best restaurants and could sneak into clubs, often through windows or cracks in the walls. We created a fission-fusion mini-society for ourselves and got into a groove. Admittedly, she was a little mischievous, and there was the time that she marked her room with urine and glandular secretions(!). But so what? Then I met Andy.

I'm not really ready to talk about that part yet, the part about falling in love, the mix tapes, the swapping of t-shirts and slow-motion paint fights, the making of plans and sharing of dreams. Now my dreams are only my own, dreams about coming home early from my job at the Burlington Coat Factory and walking into a sun-filled room smelling of sweat and musk and betrayal. Those masked eyes still haunt me.

So raccoons. Sure, they eat your garbage. Yeah, they carry rabies. And yes, yes, they will reach their non-retractable claws into your chest and break your heart.