Daniel Boone

I was remembering my father-in-law the other day, sweet angel that he was. One of my favorite times with him was a total fiasco where we both come off as kind of bumbling and stupid. But we laughed about it for years, and I can picture it so, so clearly.

So I used to have this big ass house with a big ass garage from which you could enter the house. One day when going down the steps into the garage I could see from my elevated vantage point that there was something on the top of my car. Upon further inspection I determined that it was turds. And probably pee, too, but that was never confirmed nor disproved. I was all, who pooped on my car? It was bigger and more crap-like than birdshit, actually it screamed mammal to me, in a silent, stinky, metaphorical poop scream. Then the next day I noticed tiny five-fingered foot prints on the hood, left by the animal who was disgusting enough to step in its own shit. Then we noticed the garbage was attacked, in spite of our ever-vigilant night garage closing (this house was on the edge of a suburban wood, and in close enough proximity to some major nature that we had to use wilderness control protocols. And as an aside, my ex who is from Damascus, like downtown, sidewalks to play on, no grass super urban zone, had a hard time with the animals. I remember collapsing with laughter when he told me that a deer stared at him when he left for work early one morning. He said he didn't trust that deer.)

So anyway, all of these clues led us to believe that there was a raccoon living in our garage. We decided to confirm this by having one person turn on the garage lights from inside the house when we heard raccoon noises, and the other person stand outside looking in the garage window. After a few poorly timed attempts success was ours and I saw that fucker dangling by one hand from a shelf, scrambling to hide from our accusing, well-lit stares. The next morning we called an animal removal service, who said that the minimum charge to trap the raccoon and remove it to a raccoon amusement park was $200.00. My FIL and I decided that was outrageous and we would take it on ourselves. Ex-h was off being doctory while we defended the fort.

My FIL felt that the first thing to do was empty the garage, so we could flush that garbage eating ringed face buttmunch out of there. We did that. When everything was out except my bike, the workbench, and some plywood leaning up against the wall, we figured out that the little bastard was hiding under the plywood. So Hajji (FIL) built kind of a small wall that would direct the raccoon out of the garage, like bumpers in bowling but made out of random shit like PVC, buckets, and wood. I told him that would not work because raccoons are capable of jumping over things that low. We stood there and discussed it for a while. He maintained that the retaining wall was necessary and would in fact be the key to our success. I remained unconvinced but deferred to his enthusiasm. We carried on. As he started moving the sheets of plywood the raccoon seemed to feel trapped and hostile, and hissed at him. He may have jumped back a little, surprised by the ferocity of the fat fucker. We decided that we should arm ourselves in case things got intense.

I found myself holding the hose. It was a hose with a high-powered multi-stream gun at the end. I turned it to the forceful setting, got the trigger settled nicely in my hand, and stood back. Hajji reached out and gingerly moved the last piece of plywood, and that was when all hell broke loose, suburban style. That little garbage pirate came at my father in law like a psycho rabid paratrooper, dodged around him, climbed up on my bike, and started trying to skitter up the wall. I turned tail and ran. I'm not proud of it, I showed no courage in the face of impending raccoon attack. Hajji stood strong and grabbed the hose where I had flung it in my extremely hasty and uncourageous retreat, aimed, and firehosed that crazypants raccoon in the direction of the great outdoors. It launched itself off the wall/bike/workbench where it had been going apeshit right into the path that Hajji had made. I believe I saw a gleam of triumph in his eye from my reconnaissance position at the kitchen door. But then he remembered how that bandit faced car pooper startled the shit out of him when it first launched its defensive psychotic raccoon attack and followed after it, hosing it in revenge. Even when the raccoon made it to the trees he gave one or two final squirts, just to make sure it knew who was in charge.

I may or may not have called the animal removal place back and gloated a little bit.