Transcript of phone conversation from two minutes ago.

"I just wanted you to know! I called the exterminator! There's a thing! In our garage!"

"Why are you out of breath?"

"I'm running in circles! So anyway! This thing must go! The exterminator is coming!"

"Like an insect thing?"

"OH NO NO NO! Like a big fuzzy gray thing! Big! Very big!'

"Can you stop talking in exclamations?"

"No! It's very big! Way up high, in the rafters, where it can drop on me! So I'm never going in there again!"

"Is it like a—"

"Probably a raccoon! Or a possum! Or a mutant raccoon/possum hybrid! I asked him if it was rabid and he laughed at me! I think that means no!"

"Okay, honey? I'm sure it's fine."

"He said it was $185!"

"What's a 185?"

"No, $185!"

"Oh, I thought that was like a code. Like, we got a 185 up here! We got a 324 situation in the garage. Like that! Ha ha!"

(silence.)

"Honey?"

"I never wanted to live here. I hate nature."

"I think it was your decision, actually."

"He's going to set a trap. That means we have to call back when the trap is filled. It's going to be in the trap. I'm never going near the trap. Never never never ever."

"No one said you had to."

"I'm going back outside to get my stuff. If the raccoon eats me, you have to marry again. Henry needs a mom."

"I think I'll marry the raccoon. Then there will always be a little bit of you around."

Comments

[Anne]

"I think we have a 185 up here" HAHAHA and marry the rodent! Oh wow I laughed so hard I'm getting strange looks from my work mates... How will i explain this!

[Marcheline]

Donna's advice makes perfect sense.... so of COURSE people who let their kids run their lives are afraid of her. Closing down comments so she can't have her say doesn't make her any less right.

- M

[alice]

Wha--?

I always close comments after a period of time. I already said I agree with her. I was joking when I said I was afraid of her. Will you lighten up?

[alice]

I love how people who don't have kids talk about parents letting kids run their lives. My god, you're so wise.

[Fairly Odd Mother]

OMG, yes a bat in the house would be the worst! Although on our honeymoon (in the jungle) we had something large and furry climbing the rafters above our mosquito net. I couldn't sleep b/c I kept waiting for it to fall onto the netting and I'd see it about 3 inches from my face. Then, I'd scream and flail and it'd get stuck in the netting and then I would just die of a heart attack then and there.

Hope that trap works soon!

[Sheryl]

Commenting on Wednesday's post: HA! AM TRICKY! I wouldn't mind having the racoon, until you mentioned the poop. Also I suppose he (or she) could get in the house. And bite you in your sleep. With her (or his) foaming rabies mouth. Hope he's in the trap this morning. Or she.

[Mauigirl52]

Sheryl, from personal experience I can confirm the poop is very nasty. Especially in one's attic. Also? Did you know raccoons move furniture in the middle of the night? Loudly? Over your head when you're trying to sleep? I used to go upstairs, knock on the attic door and yell "Knock it off, raccoons!" and go back downstairs. That usually stopped them long enough for me to drift off to sleep!

[Jessica]

I had a major stand-off on my tiny townhouse back patio not long ago with five (5), count them FIVE!!!!, racoons. They are notaskeered of us humans, those little destructive bastards.

They were all up in my trellace scampering through my grapevines, and I thought it was the baby possum who visits us and is very quiet and cute and who the cats are fascinated with, but NO. So I shot the hose up at them and they ran through the trellace and made my tiny patio look like world war three. Then they broke off part of my grapevine base, which is very thick, so I started poking up into the trellace with it, because it was literally as tall as me, which is 5'3". Man I was NOT HAPPY!

So then I stay still, thinking two racoons would jump out of the trellace and run away, but it was one, two, three, four, five....the looked like a group of racoons exiting a clown car...and they were ginormous! And a couple of them fell off the fence and INTO the back patio area, where I was wearing shorts and thongs because I live in California and the weather is amazing. And I thought, "Oh, great. They are going to attack my legs and either maime me, or maime me AND give me some disease."

I was so mad I yelled at them, and after staring at me and letting me know they could take me, they actually left.

I feel your pain. Good Luck!

[tinker]

I'm delurking (after months of lurking), because I can't believe the coincidence that someone whose blog I read, found a raccoon at their home on the East coast, on the same night that I found one at my home on the West coast.

Do you think this may be a syndicated raccoon gang, trying to infiltrate the blogging community? Or do they have ties to the Chinese Panda Tong?

The implications are frightening...

:-)

[caazoomama]

Last summer I was out in the yard with my two boys (ages 3 &5) on a lovely day when all of a sudden I hear them whispering and pointing to something on the lawn. I walk over to discover a dead mouse, no blood and guts but definitely dead. Now this is something I really hate about myself but I it got completely grossed out I was doing exactly the thing I hate when other women do it. I jumped around and made stupid high pitched noises.I’m not proud but that’s what I did. I bravely got hold of a dust pan and scooped up the very dead mouse and carrying him at arms length made my way to the trash can. I pull the lid off and what do I find inside waiting for me? A possum. Now I don’t know if he was playing possum of not but I slammed the lid back down tossed the mouse and dust pan and ran inside the house.

Not my finest moment but I live to tell the tale.

[Lisa]

Didn't anyone else besides me misread Tortoiseshelly's comment as wondering if Henry would eat the raccoon? No one? Hmm. I must be a worse mother than I thought.

Just make sure your Vermin Removal Guy is sure that the raccoon doesn't have a nest of babies in there with her. There's a scenario you don't want: He removes Mama Raccoon to greener pastures, and you're stuck feeding a towel-lined cardboard box full of raccoon kits with an eyedropper and baby formula. Fun!

I know it's baby coon season because we have a hollow tree in our back yard with a mama raccoon and I've seen the babies. Drives our poor dog, who's half coonhound, absolutely freaking NUTS. But I think she's actually kind of pretty, just so long as she stays up in the tree and doesn't come down and mess with the dog or the cat. I might think she was a little less pretty if she were in the garage, though.

And I'm not even out in the boonies like you. I'm in the Bronx.

One last thing about Henry's eating, even though I know you don't want to hear anything else about it -- in another 13 years he will probably go off to college, where he will live on ramen noodles and instant miso soup for four years. So look, he's teaching his body how to creatively metabolize carbs -- he's way ahead of the game.

[Carrie]

You know I'm thinking the term alpha mom is all wrong for the group of women you call friend (s) and also write with. I read your entry about your son pretty much ruling your life at meal time. (by the way I have children) I read how Leta at three is still pooping in diapers (and she supposed to go into pre-school?) Oh wait she eats like crap and her mother lets her do it too—'cause you know Heather and Jon would actually have to PARENT to get her to change. I read how Eden's son is mean to dogs, and Melissa’s kids have problems in school not including how their mother really doesn't like them half the time and is only happy when drinking. I'm thinking your little group is actually the anti-alpha mom image.

All the while people are asking for donations for new jeans, dooce is wearing $150 dollar jeans in a new house and yet she STILL has a donate button on her blog. Hmm……isn’t that like a charity holding business housed in a mansion all the while screaming “poor, donations needed!!” I know you all don’t live in mansions, but you’re not living off of ramen and having your lights turned off either.

Why don't you call yourselves the Brat mom club? You know as I’m a brat you and you all should listen to me because I’m popular. Popularity trumps knowledge any day!

Tell my why is it my children didn’t poop in diapers at 3 (potty trained by 2), they ate vegetables and pretty much everything the family ate, weren’t mean to dogs and are on the honor roll with tons of friends? Gee I’m guessing alpha moms are really a synonym for below average.

[alice]

Wow, Carrie, you really opened my eyes.

[Mignon]

Well, now you know what to name the raccoon.

[Shan]

Hubby is funneeee!

[Kate]

that is the funniest thing I've read all day.

[Elizabeth]

Cripes, Alice, do you sometimes feel like you need to wear a battle helmet before you read your comments? I just stopped by to wish you a very Happy Mother's Day! And in all of those photos I've seen of your weekend with the ladies, I have to say that you look absolutely LUMINOUS. I would love to have your beautiful complexion!

xoxoElizabeth

[Suzanne]

If you replace the word "raccoon" with "feral cats", I've had an almost identical conversation with my husband. =)