My sister requested that I post this on my blog. This event happened to my dear friend Jennifer and I a few summers back out at our family lake cabin. My parents and family spend a lot of time at the cabin so this is just one of the funny stories of many great times there! Oh the memories!
This is a true and actual narrative. All parts of this story did happen as written. As you read you can try to picture the events as they unfolded. It makes for lots of laughs and smiles! Enjoy and feel free to pass this along to any other raccoon lovers out there.
Jennifer and I were getting ready to leave the cabin on Sunday morning. Jen was in the back room and I had gathered a few items in hand and headed for the door. To my surprise, I opened the door and a little grey nose began to push its way through the threshold. Our cabin was being invaded by a raccoon. I only had my CD case as a weapon of defense so I threw down the rest of my gear and began screaming (as if the silly raccoon could understand me) to “GET OUT!” .It was a successful move on my part, for the moment. At this point Jen had come into the kitchen to see what I was screaming and yelling about. I got the raccoon out and was happy to slam the door. My first thoughts were along the lines of ‘what would we do if that thing got into the house? We don’t have anyone out here in the backwoods of east Texas to come and rescue us from it.’ . . . not something I was up for wrangling with that morning. The second thoughts were about how we were going to load our gear in the car. This became the tricky part.
The two of us began a plan of attack while we watched the raccoon pacing up and down the deck of the cabin. It was watching us through the slats in the blinds, still pacing. We waited and in a few minutes it started to climb a tree. This was my chance to rush outside and get the ice chest into the house for packing. Sure enough as soon as I opened the door and came back in the house with the ice chest the furry masked bandit was once again on the porch now scratching on the door and making raccoon whistling noises.
This is when the broom became part of the triad of ‘defense against the dark coon’ with me and Jennifer. That broom proved to be a tremendous help for the rest of morning. What should have been about a 10 minute chore turned into a 45 minute standoff with a determined, wild animal I’d now like to call “Cooney”. The scene was much like that from the movie ‘Kujo’ . . . and I do mean it. Same idea here on a much smaller scale of course.
Jen and I took turns loading gear in the car as the other would hold back our new friend with the broom. Cooney was very sneaky and would quickly get away from us as it ran from under one side of the car to the other and then under the deck and back to the car and almost in my car. I think at one point I temporally lost my mind and actually chunked a rather large stick at it not taking into consideration that this might tick it off to the point of attack if in fact it had not already reached that point. Just to clarify, Jen and I had both reached that point as well as fatigue, frustration, anger and a small amount of fear for the all the yucky germs and disease it might have been carrying. It never even flinched. Cooney only sat back on its bottom with front hands/paws extended and began licking its’ fur giving us a disapproving look as if to say “That’s all you got crazy woman?”
We were almost ready for the last load from inside the cabin. It still hadn’t given in after receiving multiple blows to the head with the broom. It actually acted as if it liked the bristles in the broom when we would poke at it. This raccoon was not going to break under the pressure. Jen stayed outside on guard keeping it under the steps as I went to retrieve the ice chest. Now I’ve never really been convinced that any animal can change their facial expressions in any way, but when I came outside with the ice chest in hand I promise that I could literally see the little guy’s face light up, his eyes shining much like those of children on Christmas morning. This raccoon was no stranger to the idea of a cooler. Cooney knew that this may be his Christmas in July!!
Then something else happened I wasn’t expecting. It actually began to chase me to get to the ice chest. So imagine if you can ~ me, Lori Ann, running around the car and cabin deck with flip flops and skirt on, both hands on the cooler with “Cooney” trailing at my heels. That raccoon was very adamant about getting whatever it was in the cooler. I finally got the around to the other side of the car and successful deposited the ice chest. I firmly believe that there are other residents of Tall Timbers who’ve lost a fish or other snacks unexpectedly due to the tactics of one small raccoon. In the middle of this all Jen had even suggested that we throw it some food for a possible distraction but my pride got the better of me and I would NOT cave to the raccoon. Playing ring-around-the-rosy with Cooney now was just for the principle of it. I had to beat the raccoon. It had been elevated to that point for me. It was a moment of weakness.
Now on to the final round of this coon match. All was packed and we finally made it to the car without a third passenger. THANKFULLY! There was one final item of cabin business and that was to turn the water pump off at the end of the driveway near the road. We drove out a little way and stopped for me to get out and complete the task but before I could even get my fingers on the handle, once again we heard the scratching of this crazy, psycho raccoon on the driver’s side door. It had actually grabbed onto the side of the car somehow and would not let go. It took about 5 seconds of deliberation for us to decide that we would trick the raccoon into thinking we had left and we would come back in about 10 minutes to do the water pump. So I hit the gas and glancing in my rear view mirror I saw a furry grey flash fly through the air and hit the road behind us.
It was now over. Cooney watched us as we drove away with his coveted items in our car. We did drive back a few minutes later and the raccoon was nowhere in sight. Surely it had other plans for our neighbors.
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