A Surprise on Trash Day

This morning was trash day.
And now you're wondering why this is important, I know.

Being trash day, I took the trash out around 6:30am,
and then had to get my younger son's baseball gear out of the car.

As I was climbing halfway into the car, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye.
Something was outside in the dark morning with me.
SomeTHING.

I turned slowly and saw a dark furry shape.
A cat?
Crap, no, it was a RACCOON.
Within just a few feet of me,
early-morning-me, in my nightclothes, glasses and bare feet.

Simultaneously, I wished I had a weapon and my iPhone.
You know, to defend myself and have photographic evidence of the event.

In the 2+ years that I've lived here,
I've never encountered anything bigger than a wild rabbit,
so this was surprising.

I'll admit, I was more than slightly worried.
Would it attack me?
Clearly it was hungry and wanted in the trash.

The raccoon turned and looked right at me.
and just stared.
Then it dismissed me and went back to the trash.

 I realized the wild beast was not intimidated by me at all.
Not even when I took one step forward and yelled, "Shoo, shoo!"

It just stared, and I admit,
I shut the car door, picked up the LARGE bag of baseball gear
and hightailed it back to my front door.

When I peaked back at it, from the safety of home, the raccoon was still there,
investigating the trash.
Indignant,I decided this couldn't stand.
NO wild beast should be fearlessly attacking my trash.

I unleashed my ferocious guard dog.
My slightly overweight, big-boned Labrador retriever guard dog named Annie.

 "Go get it, Annie! Get the raccoon!"
I shamelessly sent the dog to scare away the raccoon.

I've never seen her move so fast.
But, of course, she didn't catch it.
But she sure tried.

And came back home to her dog bed
and attacked her stuffed rabbit instead.

Good girl, Annie!






Have you ever encountered a raccoon at home? 



 (This is a true story, and no racoons were harmed in the making of this post.)