“What are you doing?”

“There’s a raccoon out there!”

“What?! Be careful! He could charge!”

“THAT’S WHAT I’M SAYING. That’s why I’m staying in here!”

“How big is he?”

“This big!”

“OH MY GOD. How did you know he was out there?”

“The porch creaked! He’s so heavy, he was creaking the floorboards!”

“Oh my God. Where is he now?”

“He just walked down the porch steps. I’ve been trying to scare him for ten minutes. I tried throwing Solo cups at him, but he just walked up to them like they were food. He looked me right in the eye! Bold.”

“What are you doing with the broom?”

“I’m going to go out and pick up the trash he pulled out of the can.”

“No, you’d better stay inside! The damage is done…and he could charge!”

“I dunno…he’s pretty big. I don’t know if he could move that fast.”

“You might be surprised! Well, I guess it’s better than a bear.”

“Remember at Daughertys’ cabin when everyone was scared to go out because there was a mother bear in the woods with babies? I wonder if this raccoon has babies.”

“It sounds like he hasn’t been feeding anything but himself.”

“And he was drinking water from the foot-rinsing pan.”

“HE WAS DRINKING THE FOOT WATER?!”

“He just came right up and took a drink.”

“Oh my God. I don’t want to put my feet in there now! He was in the meat tray, and then in the foot water. I’ll get salmonella of the feet!”

“Remember the raccoon who used to dig in the cabin trash when we were kids?”

“Yeah, we called him Rocky. What should we call this one?”

“Rocky2K?”

“Wait…don’t those things live a long time? Like, 60 years? What if it’s the same one?!”

“Oh, Jesus. The original Rocky, still eating our trash? Bold.”

– The raccoon later went over to the neighboring cabin, where Jay Gabler‘s brother-in-law manfully chased it into the woods.

Photo by Coadey Fox (Creative Commons)