This is the part of the story where I consider doing something incredibly stupid but, through some miracle of self control and/or divine intervention, refrain.
I was sitting in the dark by a campfire when a raccoon appeared. The little bastard walked right up to me, as if I weren’t a big scary human hunter. The nerve! It eyed the bag of chips in my hand.
“Buzz off Ranger Rick!” I warned. I loathe “welfare animals”. Wildlife ought to be shy around humans. In a perfect world, all wildlife would understand that messing with people is bad juju. In a perfect world, all humans would get that too.
The raccoon approached closer. His posture was aggressive. Whoa! Aggressive to me?!? Talk about a bad decision!
I had an ax on my picnic table. Not far out of reach. I shifted ever so slightly in my chair, it was closer to my grasp now. It’s small and impressively sharp. A hatchet really. It has a tiny handle that fits in the palm like a musical instrument. It was a gift from a good friend, one of the nicest gifts I’ve ever received. It’s meant for carving and woodcraft. It’s underutilized splitting scrapwood for a campfire but the little object had served that purpose admirably.
There’s another option. The sweet little hatchet could also be a wicked weapon! It would be unbalanced for throwing but for the hand its size is perfect. It sat there on the picnic table like Satan’s own brass knuckles. If you’d have seen me then… you’d have seen one of those huge evil grins that made old school Disney villains so delicious.
The raccoon missed every part of what I was thinking. It approached boldly, thinking to bully me away from the chips; as if to say “Do you even lift bro!”
I reminded myself that I was in a campground. This isn’t the forest primeval, red of tooth and claw. It’s a playground for normal civilized people. Kids and people and pets play here. Being awakened by a crazed woodsman hacking wildlife to death would not fit into their world view. Also, what kind of lunatic will engage in armed melee with an animal over half a bag of chips?
Me. I am exactly that kind of lunatic.
“I’ll throw down just like a guy with no standards.” I warned the raccoon. I said this quietly so as not to wake the other campers but in my deepest most menacing growl.
The raccoon looked at the potato chip bag, then at me. Animals may be primitive but they’re not dumb. Something in his little head clicked. He dropped down to all fours and dashed away. Probably he hadn’t been entirely sure I was human? Likely the usual response is someone shrieking; “eek a raccoon!” Maybe he’s seen people jump on the picnic table like Betty Boop cartoon? Perhaps drunk dudes chuck a chip and laugh. But a guy like me sitting in a chair in the dark icily plotting his demise? Not something the little beast expected.
I’m very glad he left.
The whole thing lasted maybe a minute. Was I really willing to get bit in twenty places and scratched everywhere else over a bag of chips? I dunno’. Presumably I’m not that dumb. Then again they were MY chips. Is any man ever really sure just how dumb he might be? I pictured Mrs. Curmudgeon getting a call from the cops. “Mrs. Curmudgeon? Your dipshit husband was arrested beating raccoons to death at a recreational facility. Could you come post bail? You’ll have to take him to the ER for stitches. Also, you need to get that man a hobby, the people at the campground will have nightmares after what they’ve seen.”
I ate another potato chip. It was delicious. The best and most well earned potato chip I’ve ever had.
More in Part 4.
Muy Fabuloso!
Willing to die for your stuff? No.
Willing to kill for it? Yep!
Don’t know why your story spurred this memory but now you’ve gone and done it so I’ve gotta get it out:
When I was young, our family and several of our uncles and aunts and cousins would go “camping” once or twice a year. We’d always go to established state or national parks and the adults were in campers while we young’uns were in tents.
There was always between 4 and 8 families in the group (my dad had 9 brothers and sisters) and we tried to make reservations early to get that many campsites all together.
Anyway, on one of these trips my Uncle Lanny brought their family pet…a Saint Bernard. It was a cuddly, friendly beast, but it was quite large.
One night while camping, there was a thunderstorm. The dog was was chained to the base of a nearby tree to keep him from wandering off. He wasn’t allowed in tents or camper but was able to get under the awning over the entrance of one of the tents to stay dry.
During the storm, a very loud thunder clap and simultaneous flash of lightning woke up the whole campsite. It was loud enough we all ended up outside in the rain trying figure out what all the racket was about. Didn’t take long to realize the lightning had struck the top of the very tree the dog had been tied to. Emphasis on “had been”. There was about 15 feet of chain on the tree with a broken link at the end and no dog.
We notified the on-duty park ranger and then spent the rest of the night wandering (some of the adults driving) through the campground calling for and looking for the dog to no avail. I’d thought we’d pretty much searched the whole park but shortly after daylight started to hit, a park ranger came by and told us they’d found the dog.
Long story short. Don’t know how much of a zap the dog got from the lightning strike but it must not have been enjoyable. He took off and probably didn’t even slow down when he snapped the chain.
Ended up cowering under a picnic table on the complete other side of the park, probably two miles away. The people at the site heard the racket when he galloped into camp and bulled his way under the table. They reallly didn’t see anything but a big ball of fur panting and shivering under their picnic table; they thought it was a bear and hid in their camper. The park rangers happened by, were looking out for the dog and spotted him under there. They “rescued” the terrified campers, but couldn’t get it coaxed out from under the table. My cousin Glenda was the only one the dog trusted enough to come out for.
I wish I were a better storyteller because it was way more exciting than I made it sound. I guess it was the “people climbing on the table to escape the dangerous racoon” thing that made me think of it. Pro-tip…there are no brown bears in Indiana, so if you find one under your picnic table, it’s probably a dog.
BTW: The dog was afraid of thunder forever more after that night, but it was otherwise fine. No burn marks or anything, so I guess he just got enough of a zap to set him off, not enough to harm him. Lucky.
That’s a hell of a story!