Betty told us about her raccoon visitation when we were standing on a back patio wood deck sipping wine and sharing trivia. The occasion was a beautiful balmy early November evening in Austin, Texas. It was warm enough for us to be outside without coats. We were baptizing our friend’s new deck which was still under construction. The wood was fresh scented and un-weathered and a proposed guardrail was not yet constructed. We sipped our wine and were careful to avoid getting too close to the edge, some three feet above the ground below. We looked out over our friend’s back yard while he explained that his treasured, (city ordinance protected), large oak and pecan trees prevented grass from growing. He told us that he intended some shade-tolerant xeriscape planting to beautify it and bring it to the standard established by his new outdoor patio.

As I looked out, I mentioned that I was reminded of the previous morning when I looked down from our patio to our lawn-less back yard and had seen two large raccoons beside our fish pond. They might have been fishing or drinking, or perhaps, dousing their food. Dousing is a strange habit, mostly observed in raccoons in captivity, when they wet their hand-like paws to increase their tactile sensitivity. Naturalists speculate that this is so that they can examine their food better. It is this habit which accounts for the raccoon’s name in many languages. It is waschbär in German, and orsetto lavatore in Italian, both literally meaning wash bear. In a like manner it is raton laveur in French and ratäo-lavadeiro in Portuguese, both literally meaning wash rat. Our English name is derived from a Powhtan Indian term ahrah-koon-em which means (the) one who rubs, scrubs, and scratches with its hands. My two were doing something with those same hand-like paws. They looked up at me with their black and white faces before, very slowly, moving off into the adjacent green belt. I remarked how nonchalant they looked and commented on their size and attitude of ownership.

My comments brought Betty to her story. She also lives adjacent to a greenbelt. When she moved into her two story house she had the door between the house and garage fitted with a cat door so that her large female cat could pass in and out at will. Betty kept the cat’s food, water and litter in the garage. She further indulged her feline by making sure that the overhead garage door was never completely closed. It was always left with a six inch gap between it and the drive so that the cat could commune with the outside as she pleased. The arrangement seemed perfect until Betty noticed that the cat was making more mess and was eating more. Betty was not overly concerned as the remainder of the cat’s routine remained unchanged. She was as loving as usual and, at night, still visited Betty’s bedroom where she would curl up on Betty’s bed and sleep next to her.

One night Betty was drifting off to sleep when a large animal jumped onto the bed. Betty knew that her cat was large and sleepily thought that it was her. Then, in her half-asleep state, she thought that she could distinctly feel two bodies on the bed, the sensation woke her up. She looked down and, to her surprise, saw her cat and another animal sleeping on her bed. The other animal sported a bushy striped tail. She reached out to touch it. Her movement woke both creatures and the visitor turned his face towards Betty. She recognized his dark patched eyes surrounded by a white ring, the white around the snout and the dark stripe down the middle of his face. It was the unmistakable face of a raccoon. Both Betty and raccoon reacted with surprise and the raccoon jumped off the bed, fled out through the bedroom door, down the stairs, out through the cat door, into the garage, and out to the beyond.

As Betty narrated this curious tale I couldn’t help thinking about the Warner Brothers amorous Parisian skunk Pepé Le Pew who fell in love with a cat named Penelope Pussycat. I recalled the scene when some paint fell on her back giving her a skunk-like stripe down the length of her body. I remembered his jumps and sweet Anglo French accented comments such as, “It is love at first sight, is it not, no?”. I wondered whether Betty’s tale was also a story of mistaken love. Or was this raccoon merely being companionable and moving in with the cat with whom he had been sharing the garage for some time?

Betty thought that the visit was just a strange event until one morning, a month or so later, she arose to meet the raccoon standing in the middle of her bedroom. She advanced towards the creature. She must have been obscuring his line to the door as, instead of taking this path of escape, he turned and somehow managed to climb up the window coverings and to position himself in the corner of the room. He sat high up under the ceiling where the curtain rods of two adjacent windows came together. Betty remained calm and made sure that the bedroom door was open. She also opened the windows and then, unconcerned, went into her bathroom and took a shower.

When she came out she fully expected to find that the raccoon had gone but he was still there. He looked down, with his masked face, and chattered at her. She went and got a broom and tried to coax him to leave. This was of no avail. Betty knew that raccoons carry rabies and so did not want to come close enough to be bitten. She decided to call her neighborhood security department.

Two uniformed guards arrived and took a look at the poor animal still clinging onto his perch. They also attempted to coax him to leave by prodding with Betty’s broom but they knew better than to get within biting distance. They told Betty that this was not their expertise and suggested that this was a job for Ernie.

They called Ernie who soon arrived. Ernie came equipped a net with a remotely operated clamp and positioned himself to capture the raccoon. As soon as Ernie began his approach the raccoon must have recognized defeat for he leapt down from his perch and shot between their legs, out through the bedroom door, down the stairs, out through the cat door, into the garage, and out to the beyond.

When the humans left in the room had recovered from their astonishment they also went out of the bedroom and down stairs. They stood in the hall near the cat door into the garage unwinding and talking to each other. They needed a few minutes of discourse to bring their world back to the norms to which they were accustomed. As they were shaking hands and beginning to break up they were further taken by surprise. Betty’s cat selected this moment emulate the raccoon and to streak through their legs. As she went she gave a wild wail. She quickly went out through the cat door, into the garage, and out to the beyond.

Copyright © Jane Stansfeld, September 2014