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A flying ball of fur careens out from under the couch and launches itself as soon as it clears the furniture’s lip. It arcs nicely through the air for such a chonky ball and lands right on Atlas’ face.
“Argh!” His hands fly up to try and defend himself.
“Argh!” I echo as my hands fly out to defend him, even though I’m rooted to the spot in shock.
“Eeeeeeeee ssssssssssssss!” The raccoon’s hands fly out as it squeals and hisses. This particular trash panda has no compunction about defending itself. It latches onto the long strands of Atlas’ hair that I was just grasping and running my fingers through while he was taking me to the nine realms of heaven and then some. The raccoon isn’t doing the sexy mussing thing, though. He’s doing the oh my god, I’m scared, and I’m hanging on for dear life thing.
“I’ll help!” I grab the broom by the door, the hefty old corn broom that belonged to my great-aunt. It’s ragged and nasty and old looking, but it still functions, and I couldn’t bring myself to throw away any of her things. Donating is one thing, but no one would have wanted this, so I kept it.
I grasp the handle boldly and charge across the room while the raccoon is still trying to use Atlas as a climbing post, or maybe more like a bucking bronco that it’s trying to ride out the door by using Atlas’ hair as reins. Atlas swaggers and zigs and zags all over the place. I rear back with the broom when I’m within a couple of feet, let out a war cry, and swing.
I’m not the most athletic person in the world, and instead of gently dislodging the raccoon from his face with a sound swat that wouldn’t have hurt it because corn bristles really aren’t tough at all, and I wasn’t swinging that hard, I hit Atlas right in the side of the face with the not-so-soft bristly part, or more like the hard part of the broom that attaches to the handle.
“Argh!” He grunts as he starts to fall.
“Seeeeeeeeeeeyawwwwwww!” The raccoon screeches. It’s not going down with the ship, apparently, and as Atlas staggers, trips over the coffee table, and goes careening to the side to land right on his very nice derriere, the raccoon scuttles across the room.
All of a sudden, he stops, spots the cheese, and races for it like his life depends on it. It’s rather funny—if it wasn’t so not funny—to watch the beast gather up the tiny little cheddar pieces in his paws as he runs on his hind feet. He gets most of them and bolts out the door, turning at the porch to give us one last fuck you very much look before racing off.
Even though I’m shocked at what just happened, namely the fact that I hit Atlas upside the head like a raving storybook witch with her not-so-enchanted broom, I stumble to the door and force it close. Not sure what that’s going to do if there are more raccoons in my house’s roof rafters or crawl space or whatever is up there, but at least this particular one won’t be using the front door.
Raccoons usually run in packs, I think. That would explain a lot. Okay, maybe not packs, as they’ve not wolves, but in families? For the love of trash and pandas but not exactly trash and pandas together, I hope I don’t have an entire family of mammals living up there.
“Atlas!” I rush over to where he’s sitting on the floor, holding the side of his face. He’s staring up at me, looking a whole lot dazed. I drop down beside him and cup his face. “I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to hit you! I was aiming for that little bastard.”
“You got him off, so you succeeded.” He groans and rubs the goose egg that is forming along his hairline. “Don’t worry. I’d rather get beaten by a broom any day than bitten.”
“Oh god! I should take you to an emergency room! You should get a rabies shot. Maybe we both need one.”
“It didn’t bite me or draw blood, and I’m sure it wasn’t rabid, so I’m good.”
“Are you sure? I think you should still get checked out!”
“I’m fine. No bites. It was just grasping onto me, probably scared out of its wits.” He cranes his head up to the ceiling, where the giant hole gapes right beside the chandelier. “I’ll get the crew to come and repatch and repaint that, but before I do, I should call for someone to come and make sure there aren’t more up there and double-check that all the holes where they might be getting in are closed up. If that was a mama or even a papa—not sure how they operate their family units—but if you saw one, and now we’ve seen another, there’s a good chance there could be cubs up there.”
