Ranger Rick Woes

Last September, I wrote an entry about a mouse that entered my Brooklyn home. I have just been alerted that another creature has managed to call chez Timo its home. I’m not kidding when I write that a raccoon was found in my roommate’s bedroom earlier tonight! My roommate Phil called me to say that he heard a noise in our roommate’s room and he entered the room to investigate. He flipped on the lights and a raccoon raced into the closet. Now, instead of running out of the room and screaming like a girl (like I would have done), he walked toward the closet and saw it crawl back into a hole in the wall that probably leads to the attic. Pete, our handyman is coming by tomorrow to seal off the attic.

I lived next to a patch of woods in Eau Claire, Wisconsin for eighteen years and I never encountered a raccoon. The same goes for Madison and Minneapolis. So why do I have to move to one of the largest cities in the world to experience the foul, disgusting stink of a raccoon? And now that I think about it, it gets worse. This morning, I ate a bowl of oatmeal and I took it up to my room. I did not finish the entire bowl and in my haste to leave the house, I left the bowl in my room on my bed. If that bowl is empty when I get home (I’m at the school now), I will have to find a new place to sleep tonight. I’ll let you all know how it turns out.