Raccoons are Vicious

ON FRIDAY, MY WORK HOSTED OUR ANNUAL CHRISTMAS PARTY AT SUNDANCE SKI RESORT. And although it was amazing, the entertainment was wonderful, the food was fulfilling, I can never think of Sundance without thinking of raccoons.

Raccoons and I go way back you see, clear back to when I was eight and my sisters friend had a pet coon which ran in a bush, causing a bit of a dilemma for us.

“Quick, give me your shoes!” Sam’s friend Kristy shoved her hand in my direction, but there was no way I was giving up my shoes, they were brand spanking new and I hadn’t even found out how fast I could run in them yet.

Did anyone else do that? Run up and down the street in your new kicks just to see if you were faster? Back to the point.

“I don’t wanna…” I quietly shied away from her.

“Well fine, but then you have to go in there and grab him.” Now it was a challenge, but I was totally game. After all, it’s just a pet coon. I stepped towards the bush and poked around with my hands until I felt a sharp — SNIP — and pain overcame my thumb. I pulled my gangly hand out of the bush and noticed four puncture marks where the damn thing had bit me. I ran screaming all the way home and sat there crying for an hour while my mom called around to find out if it had rabies.

Good times, I tell you. Good times.

Ever since then I’ve stayed away from the evil little varmints with one exception: the day my sisters, mom and I went to Sundance to explore the gift shop, and right outside was the funniest, pudgiest little raccoon I’ve ever seen in my life swinging on a rope and failing miserably. He had a broken leg but the sweetest disposition. Shopping isn’t my thing so I stood there watching him for a while, which was fine until he changed his focus and started coming at me. Every step I took back he took two scooches (broken leg, remember?) towards me. If I moved faster, so did he. I was wondering what I should do, could I outrun a raccoon!? right when some hag that worked in the store screamed, “Young lady! Get AWAY from that RACOON right this instant,” with her hand on her hip.

You’d think she worked for peta and I’d just been caught dog fighting.

And I don’t know what it is, usually I just submit when people yell — like the time in Zions National Park when some lady yelled at Ashley and I for feeding the squirrels, something about how they’d all starve and die in the winter and it would be all our fault since we fed them, Ashley and I just stood there and TOOK IT. But no, not today, I was not going be blamed for a silly little coon that was chasing me. So I mocked, threw out my leg and folded my arms and very sassily replied, “Who are you?! You’re not my mother.”

And since I can’t find the perfect photo I took of a raccoon at the Oklahoma Zoo that talked me out of 1/2 a bag of Gardettos, I’ll leave you with a photo of a man at Wal-Mart that brought his buddy with him.