Masked intruder

I sit quietly at night, reading a book. Suddenly, I notice my cats tense up. I hear a rustling in the kitchen. I tiptoe toward the sound, my heart pounding. I see a door to the outside slowly open. A face cautiously appears. A masked face!

I yell. My cats, tiptoeing behind me -- encouraged by my yell to be aggressive -- hurl themselves at their cat door.

The face quickly draws back and disappears. Another intrusion by Procyon lotor has been repelled.

Yes, the neighborhood raccoon is gone for now, but he'll be back.

Readers will recall the filming of a new movie, The Details, at my house last summer. (The film's rumored to be released this autumn, by the way.) Nicknamed "the raccoon movie," the action is set in motion when raccoons drive a new homeowner to distraction by their nightly foraging in his newly turfed back yard.

Raccoons have been an on-going problem in this neighborhood, but ironically, they had never bothered my yard until the movie company returfed it after completing their filming. All fall and winter, I awoke each morning to see that the raccoons had spent the night rolling back the turf to get at whatever it was they were getting at underneath. Luckily, springtime brought strong root growth, and the lawn now seems impervious to molestation.

But access to my house through my cat door remains an issue.¹ Urban raccoons really have no fear of humans, although I can make a loud enough noise to annoy them and chase them away. My current intruder enjoys entering the kitchen and browsing for cat food. I try to avoid serving as a raccoon restaurant by moving the cat dish out of the kitchen and into the back room while I'm there using the computer or watching TV. On at least one occasion, however, I was so involved in something I was researching and writing that only belatedly did I tune into the sound of crunching and notice movement out of the corner of my eye -- the cheeky devil was leisurely dining in the same room with me.

If I'm going to be gone for a long weekend, I have to leave out three times the normal amount of food, knowing it may have to feed a large raccoon, in addition to my two cats. My only alternative would be to close up the cat door and keep the cats penned up inside for several days.

My adversary has become so brazen that I've even found signs that he sacks out on my living room couch while I'm gone. What next? Will I come home to find him dressed in my robe and slippers? Smoking my cigars, drinking my brandy?²

Raccoons are highly intelligent. When they work out a solution to a problem, they remember the solution for several years afterward. They have extremely dexterous and sensitive "fingers." They are preternaturally cute. They douse their food before eating it (in my cats' water dish!). Their name in English comes from an Algonquian Indian phrase meaning "[the] one who rubs, scrubs and scratches with its hands." They usually co-exist reasonably peaceably with house pets, and will befriend them if they see any advantage to themselves in so doing.

They are smarter -- and certainly cuter -- than lots of people I know. And probably, all in all, less annoying.

I could never kill my neighborhood burglar. I just have to learn to live with him -- and figure out how to do so without serving as his primary fast food emporium.

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¹Yes, I know about electronic cat doors, and I've perused ads for them on-line. But they're expensive, and none seems to fit the hole already cut in my door.
²Just kidding. I don't have cigars or brandy.