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The perils of the wild & wooly suburbs
Jun. 1st, 2006 09:16 pmCame home from Artists Way, walked across the park and through the back gate into the yard, per usual. Less usual was surprising a raccoon who was nosing around in my herb garden, who did a visual "aieee!", took off running, and did a beautiful swan dive into the pool.
Double-take. Blink. Autopilot took over; I ran to the pool's edge and shouted "You, sir! Out! At once!"
He continued dog-paddling around, taking no real notice. Raccoons are quite comfortable in the water, you know.
I knocked on the basement window to summon the rest of the household--at this point, I was mostly just overtaken by the whatthefuckery of it all. As everyone came out, it started to occur to me that he hadn't actually meant to dive in and that this was not actually part of his usual evening recreation. Closer observation revealed that, yes, he was in some distress, being unable to get his furry ass out, and he was not familiar enough with the terrain to realize that there were steps at the other end.
A certain amount of wackiness ensued with offering him strap-style deck lounge chairs &c. before I finally took the direct approach, got the long skimmer pole, planted it under his rump and gave him a heave up so he could reach the rim and pull himself the rest of the way out. He growled his extreme discomfiture at me, and we withdrew to the house & let him sulk in the shrubberies.
Double-take. Blink. Autopilot took over; I ran to the pool's edge and shouted "You, sir! Out! At once!"
He continued dog-paddling around, taking no real notice. Raccoons are quite comfortable in the water, you know.
I knocked on the basement window to summon the rest of the household--at this point, I was mostly just overtaken by the whatthefuckery of it all. As everyone came out, it started to occur to me that he hadn't actually meant to dive in and that this was not actually part of his usual evening recreation. Closer observation revealed that, yes, he was in some distress, being unable to get his furry ass out, and he was not familiar enough with the terrain to realize that there were steps at the other end.
A certain amount of wackiness ensued with offering him strap-style deck lounge chairs &c. before I finally took the direct approach, got the long skimmer pole, planted it under his rump and gave him a heave up so he could reach the rim and pull himself the rest of the way out. He growled his extreme discomfiture at me, and we withdrew to the house & let him sulk in the shrubberies.
