Profiles in Ridiculousness

With the exception of the birth of a child, very little that is good happens at 3:41 in the morning. So it was with some dread that I awoke two nights ago to hear our garbage pail being rummaged through. My first thought was "Damn those hobos!"

But then I shook out the cobwebs and realized I had been given the chance to finally confront my nemesis: The raccoon that has been going through our garbage on a regular basis and making a general mess of things.

So I crept downstairs, peeked out the front window, and there --- tucking in to the remainder of Samson's chocolate birthday cake --- was a raccoon easily as big as dachshund. I tapped on the window and gave him my best "Hey, WTF" face. No response.

I got a flashlight, opened the window, and shone it in his face. No response.

My next move was to open the door and chase him away, at which point I remembered that the house alarm was set. For some reason, disarming the alarm (which entails pushing buttons that beep) always wakes up one or both of the kids.

This happens when I slip out around 6 to go the gym, which isn't great but is manageable (at least I tell myself this as I imagine Vicki rolling over and cursing me under breath and into her pillow). But at quarter of 4 in the morning, the idea was untenable. So I resigned myself to letting the raccoon have his cake and eat it too, while I tried my best to be menacing from the front window.

[Sidenote: I'm not particularly menacing close-up, much less from behind a window, so you can imagine how successful I was at scaring the raccoon straight.]

Last night, however, time was on my side. It was just before 11 o'clock, and I was in bed reading when I heard the familiar thud of our pail being turned on its side. I headed downstairs and opened the door to find the bandit sitting on our porch railing, getting ready to hop into the pail.

It was at this point that I realized I had nothing with which to scare the raccoon. My "hey get out of here" was met with a blank stare, so I went back in the house to look for something to throw at him. And there, next to the door, standing like a mute witness to my earlier dereliction of garbage duty was one of Jane's pee diapers in a little blue bag. Heavy enough that if I hit him he'd get the message, but not so heavy that I'd be required to remove an unconscious scavenger from the property. [I had to remove a dead cat from our road last winter, and it was pretty unpleasant, to put it mildly.]

So I stepped out onto the porch into the chilly night air.

And there, in the glare of the front porch light, in the half shadows made by the rising moon, under the cold fire of the stars burning in silent galaxies, I threw a pee diaper at a raccoon.

My aim was a little high, and it actually sailed over its head. But it fled, grumbling, into the shadows past the reach of the porch light. And I was victorious. Also, ridiculous.

Postscript: It came back later (sometime around 4, I think), but before I went to bed I put a brick on top of the lid to keep it secure. Advantage mine.