Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Jillian vs. Racoons vs. Centipedes

Ah, I can’t believe I forgot to tell ya’als about my encounter with the raccoon a few nights ago. I get home at like 1.30 AM and all the lights are on in my neighbor’s house. They’ve just moved and I think there’s renovators in there or something. As I pull into my parking space, someone is peeking out the window and I instinctively turn down my iPod. I hear this unearthly screaming I had heard a few nights ago that sounded like an animal dying. My boyfriend said it was probably a fox, as foxes scream, so I’m a little freaked out because I don’t want to meet a fox tonight, and I watch too much Animal Planet and think I’m going to get bit and get rabies. I get out the car and look to the left towards a different house (I live in a townhouse) and there is this THING that’s walking along the sidewalk in the darkness. I think “woa, that’s one ugly cat….wait… OH SHIT, IT’S A RACCOON.” A chill goes up my spine, and the only thing I can think to do is jump back in the car. I’m all panicked, and the stupid thing walks across MY PORCH to the neighbors house like “whatever dude, this is my house.” I flash my lights at him but he looks at the car and keeps walking. I’m really freaked out now and call my boyfriend, who I know is probably asleep, because he had fallen asleep before I left and am flipping out on the phone. He’s like “well, just honk at it,” but I don’t want to wait up the neighbors. As I’m sitting there talking to him, these things are still screaming, and the raccoon that walked across my porch is CLIMBING THE BRICKS of the neighbor’s house, and is climbing up the window to get to another raccoon that’s been screaming. I’m like yelling this to my boyfriend: “omgomgomg, he’s on the window! He’s climbing up the bricks! HE’S ON THE WINDOW!” Then the people who are in the house, who I assume are trappers or something, because the people that are moving in are two women and these are two men, come out and scare the window climber away who goes sulking back down the sidewalk. One man’s out near my car and the other has a flashlight in the doorway (I’m with you, bro) and the guy on the sidewalk is telling the other to shine the flashlight up, in Spanish. I figure it’s my time to leave and get out and tell them they’re raccoons, but I don’t think they understood, and I don’t know how to say raccoon in Spanish (mapache) so I just run in the house. My cats are sitting there like “oh hey, what’s going on? What took you so long to come in the house?!” I text my boyfriend to let him now I got in ok, and go upstairs.

Aw, so then you think this is the end of the story and I just went to bed, right? NO, YOU’RE WRONG. I put my cats in my room, pee and brush my teeth and go to turn off the fish tank light and there’s a bloody centipede behind the tank, on the wall. WTF. I hate centipedes. I hate bugs of all kinds, but I can usually kill them, but not these bastards. Just typing about them is giving me the creeps. It’s half dead, and kinda meanders across the wall a bit and I pick up a shoe, because I don’t really want to sleep on the sofa in the other room, and we rearranged the furniture downstairs and I don’t be able to use the sleep sofa. All this is going through my head, while I’m standing there naked with a shoe in my hand. I also debate who to wake up to kill it and who would be less angry: my boyfriend, who totally would not drive over here to kill it; my dad who can’t see that well as he’s legally blind and would be pissed, and I’m naked; or my mom who would be pissed as hell because she thinks I can just get over this phobia. I’m still standing there as the thing makes its way slowly across the wall and goes out under the door. (And we got new darker carpets, so I can barely see it.) Thank god for Susie! She was on that sucker like white on rice, and it went zinging across the carpet, horizontally, at speeds I wouldn’t have thought possible for something so small. It might have broken a sound barrier, seriously. (Now I know why they have so many legs. Damn things are FAST.) I think Susie eventually kills it, but I’m exhausted and want to sleep, and as long as it’s not in my room anymore, I don’t really care.

And then I’m free to sleep with the sounds of Susie’s bell on her collar and the screaming of raccoons in the distance to lull me into sleep.

6 comments:

Vaughnde said...

I am so so so Sorry You had such a bad night Jillian but I'm sitting here laughing my head off! This is hilarious and I seriously do hope that things have calmed down since then!

rosehippo said...

Hahah, thanks! It is funny now, but at the time it was really scary! And I haven't even heard them since. Crazy raccoons.

Esshaych said...

Blimey, what a night!! We get the screaming round here too, it sounds terrible :( I don't think we have racoons though!

rosehippo said...

!!! What's out there screaming then?

The first time I totally thought it was a werewolf, no joke. It was that scary and unnatural.

Esshaych said...

I think it might be foxes :S I HOPE it's just foxes!! :P

Uncle Ken said...

JTG. Just dropped in to see what you were getting into today. A werewolf, racoons, centipedes and a crazed cab driver following you around. I think that's a pretty full day. You need your rest.