The City Boy

I went to sleep early last night because I haven't been feeling tip top lately and I wanted some extra rest. At 11:15 PM I awoke to what sounded like wind blowing open our doggy-door downstairs. Groggy and not entirely convinced of what the sound was, I laid in bed for a few minutes trying to figure it out. It's not uncommon for the doggy-door to blow open and shut when the wind blows, creating a sound similar to a shovel or a dust pan grazing concrete, so I didn't think much of it. But as I started to fall back to sleep and still heard the noise, I realized that the weather had been perfect all day and was supposed to be for the next few days. Immediately my heart started racing as I realized the sound couldn't be coming from wind, although it was certainly the doggy-door.

At this point I knew there could be a problem brewing. I sat up in bed and determined that the noise was one of two things: 1. A burglar trying to get through the small door. 2. An animal trying to get in and having some trouble doing so. Truthfully, I was almost hoping for the former because I figured I could handle anyone dumb enough to try and enter our house through the doggy-door made for a small to medium size dog, and I knew that any animal trying to come in was likely going to be ugly and scared, thus making it surly and less than enjoyable to deal with. Plus, outside of dogs, cats and other domesticated creatures I'm not exactly Crocodile Dundee when it comes to handling animals. The uglier and less cuddly the animal, the more scared I am of it. So when one of the animals I first assumed may be lurking downstairs was a Possum, I nearly shat myself.

Standing on the top of our staircase, in my underwear and still half asleep, I mentally ran through possible scenarios that could be causing the stir. "There could be a massive possum, ugly as all hell with it's ribbed tail whipping back and forth, stuck in the doggy-door and staring me in the eye as I walked down the stairs." Or "Maybe it's a group of them entering the house, thus causing the sound to persist." That led to "Shit! What in the hell will I do if there are wild animals in my kitchen when I get downstairs??" A question that may have obvious answers for many of you, but for me, a guy who grew up on the beach with almost no wild animals, at least on land, within 10 miles of me, this is not something I can figure out on the fly, and in my underwear, in the middle of the night.

I was so troubled and unable to think that I briefly considered going back into the bedroom, locking the door, and hoping it (whatever "it" was) would be gone in the morning. Thankfully for my male pride, the drop or two of manhood that I still had at that point forced me into action....sort of.

I grabbed a flashlight and headed down the stairs, one inch at a time. I moved with such trepidation you would have thought I was approaching a lion's den.

We have a landing that separates our two flights of stairs, the bottom half of which looks directly at the doggy-door in question. When I reached the last stair before the landing, I knelt down to see if I could make out what was there. Still nothing in sight, but the sound continued.

At this point, I made a loud noise. Most likely the squeal of a little girl, but thankfully nobody will ever know. When the door kept brushing back and forth and I couldn't see anything I knew it must be an animal. A human surely would have been visible and/or scared off by my fearful cry. So I took a deep breath, and made the life risking (at least in my mind) final step onto the landing where I would surely be face-to-face with the viscous beast. I aimed my weapon, er, flashlight, onto the doggy-door and didn't see anything. What the hell? Then I pointed the light a few feet to the right, down the sliding glass door that connects the doggy-door to the wall. What I saw was two yellow eyes, a girthy body, grey fir and a tail with black stripes. A freakin' raccoon! Next to it, trying to push its way through the doggy door, was his equally wide companion. Thankfully, the varmint was too plump to force his way through, so the door just kept opening and shutting as he repeatedly tried to shimmy through the threshold.

After all that fear, all the "what ifs" that raced through my brain, my viscous intruder turned out to be a pair of raccoons looking for some grub. All I had to do was shake the flashlight a bit and they took off. But before they did, the one I initially locked eyes with stopped, sat down to itch his neck, much like a dog would, gave me a "I can't be bothered to deal with you" look, and casually walked away. I swear he was trying to show me up. Little bastard.

In hindsight, we practically set the table for those furry little creatures. Not only are our trash bins right outside that side door, but our dog's bowls, typically filled with food and water, sit right inside the doggy-door. The scent must have been too much to resist. I'm surprised I haven't heard/seen this happen before.

So there's that. I'm officially, and publicly, a candy-ass city boy. I haven't got the slightest clue how to deal with a wild animal, and I probably never will. In fact, I still don't know what I would have done had one of those critters gotten inside. I might re-consider the "go back in the bedroom and hope it isn't there in the morning" route, or maybe I'll "shoe 'em off with a broom" as Forrest Gump said his momma used to do. Either way, you can be certain that I will be scared stiff.


Cheers,
TWF
a.k.a The City Boy