Raccoons!
As if I don't have enough bullshit to deal with, raccoons have invaded Chez Lidgett-Renkoski. Don't worry, it's not a Grey Gardens situation (yet), so far the raccoons have gotten no further than the garage but they are clearly setting up a command center in there in advance of a more ambitious campaign. Fear not, they will be stopped. I've lined the property with cotton candy and installed a moat.
Our family has long been supporters of the local raccoon community. We put the trash on the curb the night before pickup and it isn't rare to find the bin raided (or tipped over) by the morning. However, a few nights ago I forgot to close the garage door and the raccoons had quite a party with discarded ribs in the garbage, leaving paw prints (and, uh, other things) on the garage door which, while opened, created a nice little party deck for them. First, it's very rude for animals to have parties when we can't so I followed the governor's orders and closed my public space. It turns out, however, that our garage's side door, if not deadbolted, can be very easily pushed open by an enterprising small mammal and so the party continued, this time with catfish remnants on the menu. So, the next night the deadbolt was employed, the garage door was closed and I went to bed assured, like many a crusty old dean from a college movie, that the party had been shut down. It turns out, however, that the small hole in our garage wall caused by a felled limb months ago is just big enough to become a big hole which power-mad raccoons can use to make a mockery of me. So the hole has been patched with a piece of plywood that looks terrible but, three nights in, seems to have bested the raccoon's resolve.
None of this should surprise me. Raccoons are furiously clever creatures, ranking somewhere between cats and monkeys on the IQ ladder. City raccoons are smarter still. Research shows that raccoons in urban areas learn and remember to avoid busy thoroughfares and when pitted against country raccoons in simple problem solving contests (like opening bins), the slick raccoons beat their bumpkin cousins every time. There are a surprising number of scientific studies that seem designed to answer the question of whether or not raccoons can open bins. THEY CAN. I KNOW THIS. The scientific community has other things to study at this moment, I can assure you. Raccoons have proven themselves capable of opening locks, hooks, bolts, buttons, latches, and levers. They have even proved Aesop correct, who wrote in his fables 2600 years ago that crows would drop stones in a water basin to raise the level of water, so raccoons have been tested to do the same thing, to access marshmallows. These thieving, beady-eyed bastards of the night have even infiltrated the White House (and no, I don't mean Stephen Miller). Calvin Coolidge, who had a presidential menagerie that included bobcats, lions, wallabies and others, had a pet raccoon named Rebecca who even partook in the White House Easter egg hunt (and probably won, too). Most presidents have had animals at the White House (though usually of the dog or cat variety). In fact, Donald Trump is the first president since James Polk in 1849 not to have a pet, unless you count Lindsay Graham.
The English word raccoon comes from the Powhatan people of what is now Virginia who called the little assholes aroughcun, which means "animal that scratches with its hands." Spanish speakers call them mapache, which derides from the Aztec word mapachitli, which means "one who touches everything with his hands." This is also what the Aztecs called Harvey Weinstein. Other languages make note of the animals' hands in their names. The Italian procione is a reference to the Latin name for raccoon, Procyon lotor, which means "doglike washer." Hints of that can be seen in the French word for raccoon, raton laveur, which is my favorite because it substitutes "doglike" for "ratlike." If there is anything good to be said about raccoons in this moment, it's that they do wash their hands regularly.
As we're on the subject of what to call raccoons, it's been guessed that my son Rocky is named after a raccoon of sorts, Rocky Raccoon of the Beatles' White Album. While I love that song, written by Paul as a parody of Bob Dylan's story-blues style (the opening lyric of "Now somewhere in the Black Mountain Hills of Dakota..." was originally "Mind you, coming from a little town in Minnesota..." a nod to the Hibbing, MN native Dylan [also, there are no mountains, black or otherwise, in South Dakota). The truth is that my father wanted to name my older brother Rocky until my mother informed him that that would not be happening. Mom had no such veto power when it came to my children's names and Liz and I loved it (also, Dad had been whining about the missed opportunity of giving the world a Rocky Renkoski for three decades and counting). Just the same, Dad had a printed version of the lyrics of Rocky Raccoon hung on the wall of my and my brother's childhood bedroom and that same piece of computer paper, a little torn and yellowed, hangs on Rocky's bedroom today. I'm looking at it now, in fact, as Rocky's room has become my office during quarantine. Right after the printed words of "The Story of Rocky Raccoon — Yeah!" is handwriting that reads "Love, Daddy 12/5/88." It's a treasured possession and a reminder that music and family are bigger than one person and one time.
AND YOU THINK I'M GOING TO LET SOME MASK-FACED, RING-TAILED BEAST THREATEN ALL THAT? We shall go on to the end. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the garages; we shall never surrender,
Ok, I'm not saying that the daily battle against the raccoons is not shredding my sanity a little. My sanity is already strained by our current isolation and I've developed a genuine dislike of the mongrel hoards. I feel strongly that this battle of attrition is one that I have to win. I've been thinking lately, as I usually do, of Nietzsche, who wrote "Beware that, when fighting monsters, you yourself do not become a monster...for when you gaze long into the abyss. The abyss gazes also.” It is not lost on me that a group of raccoons is called a gaze. Sleep tight, everyone.