Home Invasion

I hate it when I hear strange noises in the middle of night. As the man of the house I’m obligated to investigate. The clanging in my kitchen at zero-dark-thirty didn’t sound like one of my teenagers foraging for food, but someone was definitely looking for some grub. Needing a weapon, I picked up my 24-inch Stiff Stick (it’s a massage device, pervert) and headed downstairs. My approach was intentionally unstealthy, but my stomping did little to scare off the intruders. I raised my Stiff Stick and turned on the light expecting to find the Hamburglar rummaging through my refrigerator for ground beef. That’s not what I encountered. I lowered my Stiff-Stick and stood there speechless and staring, unable to comprehend and process what I was seeing. 

“Hello, this is 911, state your emergency, please.”

“Um, ahhh, I’m not sure this qualifies as an emergency, but I have two raccoons in my kitchen.”

“[Laughter] I’ll connect you to animal control.”

At two in morning, animal control is guy with pager who is going to take an hour to get to your house. I opened all the doors and windows, hoping Dave Crockett’s head gear would walk themselves out of my house, never considering the possibility that they might have friends who were still looking for the party. 

Bob from animal control had a simple plan. I had to hold a pole at one end of the cabinet to keep the animals trapped while he slipped a noose around their necks. We overlooked one important part of the operation: we forgot to brief the raccoons. After they sent every useless, decorative plate crashing down, they shot past my pole, sailed over my head like oversized flying squirrels, dropping seven feet to the ground and landing the middle of my living room.

For the next hour we played Keystone Cops, chasing the little masked bandits from room to room, flushing them out from beneath couches and chairs. We eventually had to stand every stick of furniture on end to eliminate their hideouts. We chased them towards the open doors but at the last second they would skid to stop and U-turn back into the house. Bob finally lassoed one critter after the little monster got stuck trying slip behind a toilet bowl, and while he was dragging it out to his truck its mate dashed out the back door. 

Exhausted, I surveyed the damage. Apart from the plates, little else was broken, but we had another problem. A frightened and threaten animal will urinate and defecate on the run, and by the smell of things, these were two very frightened animals. 

Two hours later I left for work, leaving Kellie to clean up the mess by herself, which was only fair since she was the cause of the whole fiasco. If she had not insisted on having pets, I would have never installed the doggie door in the laundry room that was granting Mother Nature’s vermin free access to my home. Chalk up one more reason for why I am not an animal lover, as if I needed any more reasons.