I Will Hug Him and Squeeze Him...

My new favorite pastime is checking my security cams upon waking to see what kind/slash/how many wild animals visited my deck under the cover of darkness.  It’s my own personal version of, “While You Were Sleeping”.

Surprisingly, Tycoon the Raccoon has been visiting EVERY NIGHT since he trashed the place a couple of weeks ago.  Hasn't missed a one. 

Last night, however, something different happened.  He brought a friend.  Don’t get excited.  It was a fellow raccoon, not a bear or a billy goat or anything crazy

I’ve been getting a lot of sound advice, which includes enrolling Tycoon in the “raccoon relocation program” or doing something even more severe to discourage his nocturnal meandering so close to my fuzzy slippers (to which he bears a striking resemblance, ironically). 

Unfortunately — or fortunately, depending on how well you happen to fit in a trap — I have a gene that makes me fall in love will all things furry or feathered.  (Thought bubble:  No, wait, because I would love an elephant too, so I guess the gene makes me get attached to animals, period.)  In fact, full disclosure, there is a nest on the northeast corner of my front porch where three baby Finch chicks are growing up right before my eyes -- and over which I hover like a helicopter homeowner -- you would think I sat on the eggs myself. 

My genetic mutation meter is somewhere between Betty White and PETA, on account of, I do eat meatballs and love me a leather purse, but whenever I’ve had mice — OR BATS — I insisted, and paid good money for,  the “no kill” method of setting boundaries between me and the vermin who overstayed their welcome. I never asked for specifics but, in my mind, envisioned a guy in a Ghostbusters onesie plucking an intruder off my ceiling and nicely suggesting that it find a more suitable place to hang upside down than directly over my desk.

Whatever they did, it worked.  

But now I have a dilemma.  Every fiber of my being wants to build an elaborate ‘Coon Condo in my yard, with fresh water and organic, self-dispensing raccoon snacks, and then move on to an electric fence to keep my “farm” from becoming roadkill (btw, healthy raccoons have a life span of 15-17 years provided they don’t get hit by a car or eaten by a mountain lion, I looked it up).  

But then, there’s another part of me, that doesn’t want to open my eyes after a deck nap in the sun to an arrogant Procyon (their scientific name) demanding, “Fork over a dozen hot dogs - not too hot, not too burnt - for me and my ‘associates’ or it’s rabies for you, lady.  What’s it gonna be?  C'mon, c'mon, c'mon.  I ain’t got all day!”

Is there a doctor (Dolittle) in the house?