Raccoon In A Dumpster Story
Monday, Jul. 14, 2003
On Friday, I was almost dreading seeing 28 Days Later, which is the �zombie� movie, not the Sandra Bullock in rehab movie. But let me tell you, it was excellent. Possibly the best independent film I�ve ever seen. I�ll have to look up this Danny Boyle character, as I think I�ve seen other stuff by him.
The most significant, remember-it-till-I-die moment this weekend was the raccoon in the dumpster.
Yep, you read right, and it�s not that bad a story, for such a horrid title.
After church on Sunday, we had a social thing which was designed to get more people to actually show up at the nursing home we help out. After eating lots of different casseroles, I went to throw my disposable plate away and saw that the garbage cans were getting a little overfull. My tortured teen years in the food service industry had honed my sense of �That garbage needs to go out�, so I, dressed in my suit, tied up the bags and replaced them and carried them out to the dumpster to the south of the building.
I�m really glad I didn�t do a 20 foot throw on the bags, since when I got up to the dumpster, inside was a young, but not small, raccoon.
Clearly he�d been there for a while. The small rust holes in the bottom of the dumpster had all the dirt below them scooped out. He�d been trying to dig himself out through these little holes somehow. It was evident by the outside of the dumpster that he had entered in on several occasions, once with wet paws (or oily, as it had a different look on the oxidized blue paint). However, this time he couldn�t get out since there wasn�t enough garbage in it.
Perhaps he got used to food being in the dumpster the week before this last one when we had vacation bible school. They�re always getting the kids freaked up with sugar. And kids are the leftover kings. Also, there is a Burger King and a Subway nearby, so he might know that dumpsters = food in most cases.
Though it must be pointed out that there aren�t any real woods, or wilderness areas, where our church is. The majority of the wood in the area is on sale at the Lowe�s next door. Basically, he�s a raccoon in a heavily populated residential/business area. Maybe I�m wrong, I�d have to look at some maps to tell.
I think The Judge had also come out with me. He�s called that since he was the main one over the city for a long time. It�s actually his nickname. He wasn�t concerned about the raccoon. I was. I went in to talk to my advisor in these kinds of situations, Aisai, my wife.
I came in and got her and whispered in her ear, �How do I get a raccoon out of a dumpster?� She followed me away and I showed the little guy to her.
He was a very handsome raccoon, if not overly thin and terribly groomed for being in a metal box with no water or food for several days with temperatures in the 90s (35ish for you metrics out there). By the time Aisai and I got out, he wasn�t sleepy anymore, as he was when I first woke him up. Being asleep during the day was a good sign too, that meant he wasn�t rabid.
The design of the dumpster was such that there wasn�t any way for him to get out. And I sure wasn�t getting in with my suit on, so that he could rip a hole in my jugular while I tried to help him out. I went in to call the city�s Animal Control dept, which has actually changed it�s name to something less alledgedly sinister. They were closed and I got the police dept instead. I told them the situation and they said that Animal Control didn�t come out for wild animals on the weekends. Hmm. I thanked her and said goodbye.
Aisai said that maybe he�d be fine until tomorrow now that he had the food in there. In fact, while I was making the phone call, Eric went out and used a shovel to open one of the bags for him. I told Aisai that we didn�t have to worry about that since I was getting him out today. My thought was that I�d go to Aisai�s mom�s house, which is more nearby, and get a landscaping timber or something, and put it in there for him to climb out.
Some kids wanted to see him, and I needed to strategize, so a group of about 12 went out to him. He was eating some cake off one of those small dessert plates. I had to remind the kids that this was, in fact, a dumpster and that it was dirty, but they didn�t seem to care. The raccoon did get kind of freaked out when the whole rim of the dumpster was lined with heads looking down at him. And most people backed off then.
Meanwhile, in the treeline to the south, between the church and Burger King, I�d found a dead tree which I pulled up out of the ground. I broke off it�s limbs and then lowered it into the dumpster.
Aisai and I showed up for evening worship a little early so we could check on the little guy. When we were driving up, we saw that the tree wasn�t visible from outside the dumpster. My mind thought, �Oh, I shouldn�t have broken off all those limbs, I�m sure it twisted from lack of leverage and dumped him and the stick into the dumpster.� But when we looked in, not only was the raccoon not there, but the stick wasn�t either.
Later, Mike and Lynn told us that they had actually seen him climb out of the dumpster using the tree at around five o�clock.
Man, and I talked about that so much I didn�t get to my �West Asian Bearded Painted Turtle Escape� story.
In any case, pretty good weekend. I actually slept until nearly 1 p.m. on Saturday.