The One Where a Racoon Wakes Me Up

Here's the thing. 

I don't live in the freakin' wilderness.  I live in the world capital of Suburbia (and oh, how I love it!).  So when a wild animal comes waltzing through my doors (or even in my yard for that matter), I don't go "Oh, look how cute, a wild racoon...", I go "HOLY SHOOT WHAT THE EFF!" (never any reason cursing around here...nope, no ma'am).

Let's back up.

A couple years back, I found myself alone in my parents house for the night.  At the time this was quite the rare occurance as 1. I didn't live there, and 2. Four other people did.  But those four were on a little family vacation (don't get me started on family vacays sans me, though I think I had a prior commitment that prevented me from going to the Grand Canyon or some other remarkable location), so alone I was in this big 'ole house.

I'm a special kind of crazy in that I am convinced that everywhere I am is dangerous, and my parents' ultra safe and crime-free neighborhood (seriously, you should read the Neighborhood Watch section of the paper, the craziest thing that goes on around is a high school rager) is no exception.  So while I appreciated the alone time, when it came to hitting the hay, I was nervous to sleep alone in the house.  So I did what any normal 21-year-old grown ass woman would do, and I slept on the couch in the middle of the house, therefore making sure I would be aware of the happenings throughout the place.  No one sneakin' up on me in my locked bedroom, nope - I'm waiting for danger right out in the open!

Flash forward to around 3am, I'd finally gone off to snooze land, and I'm awoken by what I think is our family cat eating cat food.  But the cat was going to town on the food (seriously, to wake my up it's gotta be loud, I can sleep through a lot).  So, I snap out out my slumber and peak over the back of the couch towards the cat's food bowl. 

In my middle of the night haze, my first thought was "Wow, the cat has gotten really fat lately." 

But as the sleep cleared from my eyes a little more, I realized it was not the cat at all, but a dirty nasty hungry RACOON.

(At the time our cat was an indoor/outdoor cat, and my parents always left a little window open for him to come in and out of.  Racoons are smart, yo.)

So with a screach and a lot of super ladylike language, I catapulted myself from the couch to my close by bedroom faster than I've ever moved in my life.  While in the bedroom, I searched for a weapon to scare the little asshole out of the house.  Being that I didn't live there at the time, and for that matter never kept weapons in the room when I did, there was nothing but some trash, computer cables, and a really uncomfortable futon at my disposal.  Until I looked to the corner of the room and spotted it: the umbrella.  The umbrella I would use to defend my house against this creature.

So with shaky hands and sweaty palms, me and my umbrella exited the bedroom.  I started tapping the top of the umbrella on the ground yelling at the Racoon.  Dude wasn't phased.  Then I started screaming, and opening and closing the umbrella.  Not only was the creature not scared, that f'er was intrigued.  He got closer, and that was my cue to leave.

Back to my bedroom I went, where I decided to give up the battle, and stay in my room until my mommy and daddy came home to save me until the morning, when I hoped like hell that the racoon would have left the house. 

To make a super long story still long, the racoon was gone when I awoke, and I've never encountered one in the house since. 

Moral of the story?  Racoons are not scared of umbrellas, and never sleep in your parents' house alone.