I haven’t worked it out yet

July 7, 2016

I think is common knowledge at this point. My dislike of raccoons. Maybe you have seen me shake my fist at them. Maybe you heard about the car. Or the garage. Or the garage, or garage. I asked my brother, do you think they know how to unlock and open the garage door? Or my grill’s grease catcher thing. Little greasy paw prints all over my daughter’s balance beam on the deck. Their creepy little baseball mitt hands, with claws that dig at trashcans, and garbage and don’t even get me started on them not cleaning up after themselves. I can understand if you are hungry but then the mess they leave behind is beyond even a playgroup of three year-olds. And then I need to go out there with plastic gloves. And it’s gross. Did I say gross. It’s disgusting. Did I say disgusting. It’s simply not okay.

I am sorry if I offend. My contempt runs deep. You can tell they are up to no good lurking around like that. Their backs puffed up and their head down. They know. They know what they do to our trash. I can’t even leave it at the curb anymore. And it is not easy to remember to bring the trash to the curb in the morning. That is an evening job. There are morning jobs and evening jobs. You raccoons disturb the balance of my universe spinning on an axis of organization and timing.

We watched Where the Red Ferns Grow. My children couldn’t even look at the ‘coon skins on the barn draped like little raccoon rugs. I didn’t turn my face from the television like they did. With a steely look in my eye I sized up the 2 hound dogs, and young boy with a gun slung over his shoulder and thought, that would solve so many of my problems.

But I am not a violent person. So my contempt builds. My resentment builds. And as a person whose adult life has been freed by the concept and perpetual act of forgiveness, I find it almost impossible to forgive these masked bandits. I can’t let this one go. I don’t know how.

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