Silent Night

11/6/08

I went to bed early (Midnight) Tuesday and crashed right away.

Prior to bed, I had been watching Back to the Future II, eating a PBJ sandwich and having my first glass of eggnog this year.

All normal things for me on a Tuesday night, besides the eggnog.

At approximately 1:30 AM as I was teetering on the edge of the deep sleep, and I suddenly awoke.

Now I wake up to many things…

Cars speeding down my street, skateboarders commuting to the park, neglected dogs barking, my neighbor’s extremely loud Chevy pickups exhaust, or the next door truck driver starting up his big rig.

None of those things really effect me these days cause I have gotten pretty use to them, but what woke me up last night was something I had never heard before.

From nowhere came loud scratching, and climbing noises from my walls.

Being in the dead middle of the night, my eyes were shut still, but my ears were working full capacity.

At first I thought I had dreamed up the noise, but as I lay in bed the noise continued.

I tried to ignore it, but I had no success.

Scratch…scratch…

…tap…

…tap…clank……clankity clank.

Then scratch again.

Something was moving around a ton.

I couldn’t figure it out…Was it outside? Was it in my attic or running up the wall right next to me? I really couldn’t say at that point.

I just continued to listen, and hoped that it would stop. But it continued. It even got louder.

How could something that started out like tapping on a wall end up like resembling heavy steps across my roof, I don’t know.

All I knew is that I had to get out of my warm cozy bed to investigate.

So reluctantly I pulled my blankets off, stood up in the cold night air and walked to my front window.

Peeking through the blinds, my eyes panned across my yard to the faded yellow emanating from a street lamp.

All was clear.

But I still could hear something out there; so I waited, and watched.

My eyes feeling like weights, slowly began to gave in to the late hour of the night and started closing.

But before they shut…I saw something! Something big!

It creped up the gutter on the side of my house and disappeared to the roof.

I was only able to make out part of the shape, a fluffy tail.

Seeing the tail, I was able to figure out what exactly woke me up.

It was a huge raccoon.

So outside I went wearing only my pajamas, carrying a flashlight.

Raining and very cold, I woke up pretty fast.

Stumbling across my front yard, I looked to the roof and saw the culprit in his entirety. I thought to myself, “you’ve got some nerve waking me up…”

Feeling frustrated I grabbed the only weapon I could find, my award winning jack-0-lantern (It was small enough to throw like a baseball) rested on my porch bench.

I was seconds from hurling the pumpkin straight at the jerk, when I noticed he wasn’t alone. He was joined by another raccoon; probably his wife or girlfriend.

So out of respect I put the pumpkin down.

Shanking my fist, the two raccoons sat on the edge of my roof; staring at me like I was a bothering them.

I was just about to yell, when from behind me came raccoon noises from across the street.

I slowly turned around with my flashlight and caught the luminous parts of three other raccoons huddled next to a shrub.

Feeling somewhat surrounded I retreated into the house to grab my camera.

Now I know a camera probably isn’t everyones first choice against pesky raccoons…but I couldn’t help the desire to document my strange circumstance.

But by the time I returned outside the side street raccoon gang had fled into the night.

So there I was standing in the mud of my lawn as rain came down; taking photos at my roof.

The funny thing was a cop pulled a truck over on my street, as I was taking the photos and waving a flashlight in the dark.

I hid for the most part, hoping not to attract his attention. I knew that if he saw me I would have to answer a night full of questions.

After he left, my mission was to finally get the couple off my roof without getting rabies.

I tried to scare them off by waving my hand whispering really loud, but that didn’t work, they just ran to the other side of my house.

Then finally after giving them adequate space, they began to crawl down on their own.

Now it was a struggle for them to get up there. Remember…I heard it.

But getting down looked even more tough.

The biggest one started down first, he cautiously stepped near the edge and then at the point I couldn’t see him any longer I heard a slip and then a thud.

He managed to grab onto the side fence as he fell, it was a good catch he only injured his pride.

Now his friend was even more scared to get down; only making a gesture to reach out with a paw to measure the distance needed to fall.

But the it couldn’t commit to the leap.

Once I figured out that it was going to take awhile to muster the guts to come down, I went inside.

Wet and cold to the bone I left nature to take care of nature.

I was extremely tired, freezing cold, and confused about everything. But it only took seconds for me to find my way back to my bed.

My bed, that was now cold and uncomfortable, oppose to the way I had left it.

After settling down, I heard a funny quiet noise. Maybe it was my imagination, but I think I heard the raccoon finally fall of the roof.

“Good riddens,” I thought as I shut my eyes and fell asleep.