I just got back from Bob’s farm in Minnesota. I have lots of boring stories to share, and this will be the first.When I visit, I stay in Bob’s Sauna Hütte: a detached building with a sauna, kitchen, bedroom, office and wine cellar, which is pretty cool except it didn’t have any power this time and there was a family of raccoons living in the ceiling. I listened to the raccoon family scurry around above my head all night, and I could hear the babies snarling and fighting with one another. It was all very cute and I didn’t get a wink of sleep. (Or it didn’t feel like I slept. I’m pretty sure I didn’t meet a guy from Dee-Lite at a wedding.)I told Bob that he had raccoons in the ceiling.“Well, Nick,” Bob replied, “I’m sure you heard something, but I’m willing to bet it’s not a raccoon. I suspect there’s a squirrel up there.” Yeah, ok, but that’s a big-ass squirrel and I guess I was the only one who heard the babies growling while we were drinking a bottle of wine the next day.The last time they had raccoons in the ceiling, Bob said, they discovered it because urine soaked through the ceiling and stank. I call your attention to State’s Exhibit A, inset. We set a trap, first in the attic and then on the roof. The morning I left, there was a big-ass raccoon in the trap, snarling at us.We drove her to the Red Eye Valley, about 15 miles north and turned her loose. I’m sure she’ll find her way back; raccoons have a homing sense, and can find their way back to a nest from 100 miles away. I’ve understand they can’t breathe under water, though.Which brings us back to the curious case of the Montauk Monster, a strange cryptid that washed up on a beach, then turned out to be a burned and decomposing raccoon. Finally, this case has been solved. Some dudes found a dead raccoon and decided to give him a Viking’s Funeral. They set him out to sea on a burning raft, and the rest is history.
A Raccoon Story
3 min read
State’s Exhibit A: Urine Stained Ceiling
The Montauk Monster
A Viking’s Funeral
