Ranger Rick

Yesterday when I came home from work, there was something in my driveway. For about a second, I thought “What is Baby doing in the driveway?” (Baby being my rather large grey cat who is terrified of the outdoors) Then I realized that the creature was NOT my overweight feline, but a pretty bold raccoon. Just to be clear, here, when I came home from work it was only about 6:00, so the sun was still shining, and by all rights it was definitely DAYLIGHT. The stupid thing just sat there for a while, looking at me and my daughter in my car, while I beeped the horn. My daughter got upset with me (“Don’t scare him, mom! That’s Stripes!”) but my honking didn’t even phase the stupid thing anyway. As we watched, he lumbered over to the garbage that sat on the curb waiting for the morning pick-up. While he nosed around for Lord knows what, it struck me that my daughter had called this creature by name – not a good sign. When I asked her about it, she told me that she had seen – ahem – “Stripes” before, a couple days ago, while she and her friend were bike riding. She continued on by saying (in the way only a stupid child could) “Yeah, we tried to catch him, but he ran.” Ok, this was no baby raccoon. The thing was probably a good 20 or 25 pounds, and did NOT look particularly friendly. So while we waited for it to leave so we could safely get into our house, I explained to my not-very-bright-when-it-comes-to-wild-animals daughter (and before anyone bothers to comment that she got it from her mother – yeah, ok, WHATEVER) that you really should not approach anything that has needle sharp teeth and claws and can knock you over with their weight if they get in a good running start. Finally something spooked the furry bandit, because he took off running (surprisingly, pretty quickly) around the side of the building.

Later that evening, I was telling my friend about this incident, and she commented, “Wow, it probably had rabies. When a nocturnal animal like a raccoon comes out in the daylight, it usually means it has rabies.” Great. So now my daughter is out riding her bike with her friend with the rabid raccoon God knows how close. I just hope she remembers my warning. Just in case, I go outside to check on her, and tell her maybe she’d better come back inside.

So today I do a little websearch to find out if what my friend said is true, thinking that if there IS a rabid raccoon in my complex, maybe I ought to call animal control or something… but it turns out that that is a myth. Apparently mother raccoons search for food in the daylight to feed their babies, and not because they have rabies. Which may calm my fears about rabies, but now we are probably dealing with a whole fricking FAMILY of raccoons. The article continued on to say that one good sign a wild animal has rabies is if it acts unusually tame. GREAT!! So “keep away from the Friendly Raccoons, honey, they’re liable to be rabid.” That is sure to make a ton of sense to a ten year old kid. Makes me wonder about all those stupid petting zoos, and Ranger Rick in particular. Apparently a rabid wild animal will seem tame because it is lethargic from the disease, but when approached will go crazy and attack. Comforting thought.

Anyway, I just thought I should share this newfound information and let the general public know to keep away from Friendly Raccoons. Even if they smile at you. And ESPECIALLY if they look like they just finished brushing their pointy little teeth.