Friday, April 3, 2015

Raccoon Poisoning by Abdur Rasheed


Last Saturday, my wife and I went over her mom’s house to visit. I don’t like going over there. Don’t get me wrong… I love my mother-in-law. Hell, I bought her a car, but her and my father-in-law live with her brother. He’s a creepy fucker. He lives in his own basement as if the rest of the house doesn’t exist. The roof is rotting away. The windows leak. The carpet upstairs was worn so thin that you could see through it. It was a dump. Plus he lives in the basement with his old dog. I just know this fucker has buried some puppies who shares some of his features before. I just know it. My in-laws moved in about three months ago. I offered to help out by she insisted on staying over there and helping her crazy, worthless ass brother pay the bills and save some money, but whatever. My fake bourgeoisie ass wife has to put a clean sheet down on the couch before she will even sit down while I insist on finding something to do to avoid the whole awkward social experience of watching my wife’s crazy freakshow uncle try and use his canines to finally get rid of that fungus between his own toes. When company is afoot he pulls out all the best entertainment…FUCK monopoly! 

Moms: Rah, when it rains, water pours in through my bedroom window. 

Rah: Say no more, mom, I’m on it! 

That was all the excuse I needed to get the fuck out of the house and keep myself busy until my wife got tired of the smell of dog ass and also wanted to get the fuck out of there. I go to the back yard and get a ladder and climb on the roof. Sure enough right above her window there is a board that is 80% rotted away. I reach down to wiggle the remaining 20% of the board to feel if it is to the point where it crumbles in my hand and if the joists are rotted as well when THIS FUCKING RACOON POKED HIS HEAD OUT AND BIT THE DOG SHIT OUT OF MY FINGER! No hissing, no growling, just mauled my finger and went back in the gotdamn hole in the roof. I snatched my finger out of its mouth and instantly gritted my teeth, curled my lips back as if I was going to bite the fucker back, and didn’t speak another word from an opened mouth for three days. I climbed down off the ladder and went back in the house making sure I applied direct pressure to my fresh wound in order to stop the bleeding. 

Rah: Apparently you have yourself a bit of a raccoon problem. 

My wife and mother in-law’s jaw bones were on the floor. 

Mrs. Rah/Mother in Rah: OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! Let me see… 

I took the pressure off my wound and blood instantly started to flow on her hard wood floor. Her cat went crazy licking up my blood as I showed her the mangled bite with the finger fat spewing out of it. I knew it would send them into panic mode, but I figured I might as well get some entertainment out of this. My wife kicked the cat as she started to wretch and dry heave. The cat didn’t go far. 

Mrs. Rah/Mother in Rah: OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! Does it hurt? 

Rah: No, Baby…I kinda like it. How about we go and get me some medical treatment before I start to foam at the mouth… ‘kay? 

Mrs. Rah/Mother in Rah: OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! OH MY GOD! 

It took forever to get to the hospital. It wasn’t because it was that far away, but because my wife was still in panic mode while she was driving and missed every turn on the way. I didn’t care. I was just staring out the window thinking about what kind of outfit one wears with a raccoon hat in this day and age. After all, the weather just broke in Michigan and it was a warm 50 + degrees. It would get a little warm with this furry fucker on my head, but that wouldn’t deter me from wearing it every single day this summer. 

Mrs. Rah: Ma, did you know you had a gotdamn raccoon in your attic?  

Mother in Rah: Well I heard something up there that sounded like little kittens. I assumed it was a mother with her babies. 

As my wife went on a rant about “why the hell this? and “why the hell didn’t you that?” to her mother, I tuned them out as the thought bubble over my head showing me try on stylish raccoon gear suddenly popped and a new thought bubble opened up with me trying on a single raccoon boot and using it to stomp the little raccoon babies through the crawl space floor and into the living room as the little fuckers wondered “Why is mommy raccoon so mad at us?” with their little dying breaths. 

That thought bubble popped as I tuned into my wife instructing her mother. 

Mrs. Rah: I want you to get on the damn phone and call the people to get those raccoons out of the damn attic! 

Rah: Bullshit! I’ll be damned! 

Mrs. Rah: Bae, why don’t you just let the people handle it? 

Rah: Because the bitch didn’t bite the damn people…she bit ME. You don’t get to bite ME and be released in the wild and live happily ever after. You don’t get to bite ME and brag to all your little raccoon friends and say shit like “Yeah, girl, I bit his mothafuckin’ ass! I know…Fuck him! He won’t be coming back to this motherfucka!” I will NOT be robbed out of my raccoon boot! 

It was at that moment judging by the look on my wife’s face that I realized that she wasn’t in my head and didn’t know about my new baby stomping raccoon boot. Whatever. 

My wife had that “Ooooooooh kaaaaaaaaay” look that you give crazy people on the bus and she promptly got me to the hell Botsford hospital. 

If you have been in the military (especially overseas in the military) you can’t possibly be scared of needles. Just through regular boot camp you have to go through The Gauntlet of Shots where you stand in line, single file, with your sleeves rolled up as navy corpmen start to jab you over and over with needles in the shoulder and triceps until blood runs down your arm. I’d been vaccinated for everything from anthrax to excessive boogers… but not rabies. 

We walk up to the check-in lady, who is sitting next to a security officer, and fill out the little form and she gives me a pager as if I’m going out to eat somewhere extra fancy like Olive Garden or Red Lobster or some shit, and I go to sit down in the waiting room. My ass didn’t even hit the chair when the nurses snatched me up and rushed me to the back to check my vitals and sent me straight to a room, before my fancy pager even went off. A young female doctor came in and looked at my finger and was clearly disturbed by the look of it even though I had stopped the bleeding at that point. 

Young Doc: Does it hurt? 

Rah: No, Doc. 

Young Doc: How did this happen. 

Rah: Raccoon poisoning. 

Young Doc: I see. Are you scared of needles? 

Rah: No, Doc. 

Young Doc: A LOT of men say that, but end up passing out. 

Rah: You won’t be telling that story today, sweetheart. 

I felt my wife stirring at my side and I knew I was getting the “Don’t call this bitch ‘sweetheart’” look without even turning my head. I turned and gave her the “my finger is half-chewed off and I have rabies look.” She calmed down until the Doc left out of our little curtained-off area.  

Mrs Rah: I don’t think she knows what she’s doing. 

Rah: Why you say that, Bae? 

As if I didn’t know why. 

Mrs. Rah: Cause she just seems to young. 

Rah: I was thinking that she was young. 

Mrs. Rah: Oh, the bitch is “young,” huh? 

Rah: Crazy woman, YOU said it first…re-the-hell-lax, woman! 

Mrs. Rah: I’m just saying. Why she gotta touch your shoulder to look at your damn finger? 

Rah: Re-the-hell-lax, woman. You better stand down or you gon’ be out there with your damn momma. 

The doc came back in the curtained room, and told me they were waiting on the nurse to come back from the pharmacy with the rabies shots, but in the meantime they were going to give me some antibiotics and tetanus shots. After a while, an old nurse came in and asked me again if I was scared of frickin’ needles. I told her that needles don’t bother me, but every additional second I don’t have my raccoon boot on is starting to piss me off. My wife told her not to ask and she didn’t. She gave me twelve shots of some shit. 

The doc came back in with my rabies shots. One huge needle with 7cc of shit in it. She told me that every drop has got to go in my finger, and would I mind if some nurses watched how she did it because they never watched rabies shots before. I told them the more the merrier. Nurses started to turn away, and then leave the room, as my finger was literally inflated with medicine. 

Nurse: Oh my GOD and he’s looking at it. I gotta go. 

She must have stuck me about twenty times in my mangled trigger finger trying to find a pocket in my finger where she could push the last cc of vaccine into. 

Rah: It feels like it’s going to bust. 

Young Doc: It won’t bu--! 

Medicine squirted into the air like a high-pressure sprinkler as she jabbed the needle in from one direction and got a little close to the new opening my new soon to be boot had made. She left out the room. 

My wife leaned over and whispered. 

Mrs. Rah: Told you she was too damn young. 

I just smiled. 

She came back after she regrouped and started to rub my finger and disperse some of the medicine into my arm to make room for the last little bit. Eventually she got it in there. She gave me a schedule of my next shots in a series up until day 28. I was going to gaff the rest of them off until the doc told me that rabies is incurable, and always fatal, once the symptoms start. My boot was going to feel that much better. 

It was about midnight when I was discharged. I was walking to the truck with my phone glued to my head and I tried to get a .22 from somebody, but I kept getting the same story over and over.

Knuckleheads: I don’t have nothing that small, Deuce. How about a cannon? 

Rah: I don’t need a cannon fucker. I got cannons. I need a .22. 

Knuckleheads: Sorry, Deuce. I can find you one tomorrow. Who you beefing with that you want to bounce a .22 around in ‘em? 

Rah: *click* 

The next morning I was at Dunham’s Sporting Goods eyeballing the .22’s when I saw it….there was a high-powered pellet gun with an actual picture of a fucking raccoon on the box. That’s when I knew it was a sign from up above. 

Rah: I’ll take THAT one right the hell there! 

I went to Wal-Mart and bought a 72 pack of Alka-Seltzer, a gallon jug of ammonia and a few other special ingredients for this special day. This would be the day that The Rah would expeiencer the warm feeling of underbelly fur between his toes on one foot, followed by the helpless squeaks of baby boots for me to hang on the rear view mirror of my truck. 

But before I could enjoy the comforts of my spoils I would have to keep my wits about me and crawl into a space about 1 foot by 2 feet in an area that is too low to stand and nowhere to sit on but on the edge of 2x4’s, with the gaps filled with insulation and an over-protective raccoon mother and her babies to keep me company. This is personal for both of us. 

So I go back to Mother in Rah’s house and set up camp. I take the Coonirator 5000 and proceed to mount the scope. I remove the sight caps and dig a dime out of my pocket and go into the backyard. The have a half acre strip in Redford Township with a huge oak tree in the middle of the yard. I took up an Indian style sitting position about 36 yards out from the tree. It was particularly windy this day, and I knew that zeroing in my weapon in these conditions would throw off my shot so I would have to take great care to fire between gusts. I opened up and set up the cardboard box that the weapon came in against the tree and put a water bottle with a squirt top that my wife had the day before in front. My wife’s freakshow uncle was following me around like a puppy, asking me freakshow questions, while I worked on my breath and trigger control. 

Uncle Freakshow: What are ya doing? 

Rah: Sighting in my new toy. 

Uncle Freakshow: You aiming for that bottle? 

Rah: I’m aiming for the top. 

Uncle Freakshow: Oh. Is that going to help? 

I stopped looking through the scope and slowly tilted my head to stare at him. 

Uncle Freakshow: Right. Sorry. 

I placed the crosshairs dead center on the top of the bottle. Held my breath and with a slow, steady squeeze pulled the trigger and maintained my aim on my mark until the weapon surprised me with a sound of a half of a fire cracker. 

The whole was about eight inches to the left of the bottle and only about an inch off the ground. 

Uncle Freakshow: You weren’t even close. 

Rah: Yeah, I know. That’s why you sight your weapon in BEFORE you go into battle. You don’t want to be where the metal hits the meat and find out your sights aren’t right. 

I grabbed the dime out of my pocket and started to adjust the sights. I went four clicks up and seven clicks right. Then I waited between breezes and took another shot. I took three more shots and adjustments until the pellet hole was the exact height of the top and not even a sixteenth of an inch to the left. I made one final adjustment. 

Uncle Freakshow: You think you’re gonna get it now? 

The weapon went off and the top exploded in about 35 pieces. 

Rah: Yeah. 

Uncle Freakshow: Wooooow! That’s good shooting. 

I continued to break the barrel down, reload and fire into the bottle about ten times or more to get used to the lighter weight of this new baby toy of mine. I heard Uncle Freakshow making a low groan in excitement. I refused to look behind me to see what he was doing. Hell, I already knew he was bananas and I didn’t want to run the risk of getting any potassium in my eyes before I killed this furry bitch. 

I took the weapon in the house and grabbed a metal baking pan out of the cabinet and commenced to opening packs of Alka-Seltzer and dropping the tablets in the pan. 

Uncle Freakshow: Whatcha doing? 

Rah: Waking up the nocturnal. Get a spoon and start crushing these up. 

Uncle Freakshow: How small? 

Rah: Powder. 

While this fucker was busy I got a couple of 20 oz squirt water bottles and a small grocery bag. I pulled the corners of the bag so I could fit about four inches easily into the bottles and cut off the excess. I opened the bag while it was in the bottle and split the powder between the two bottles. I added a few other ingredients for color and twisted the bags shut. Then I filled the bottles with ammonia, twisted the bags closed and cut off the excess. Then I tightly secured the tops. 

Rah: DON’T touch these! I’ll be right back. 

Uncle Freakshow: Ok, ok, ok! 

I popped my trunk and grabbed a length of 550 cord. Then I grabbed the ladder, drill, a few 3 inch screws and went on the roof. I tied a snare and looped it over the hole that the bitch came out of. This was the only access hole out of the attic. My phone rang. 

Mrs Rah: Hey baby, are you alright? 

Rah: I‘m good. 

Mrs Rah: What are you doing? 

Rah: Making a snare for my new boot. 

Mrs Rah: I thought you were going to shoot it? 

Rah: I plan on it but if she tries to run out of the hole she’s going to be hanging by her neck off the side of the house. Then I’m going to get my knife and open her up like a furry piñata, lie on my back under her and open and close my arms and legs until I make some raccoon gut angels. 

Mrs Rah: Blaaaaaah...! *click* 

I gotta get my thrills where I can. 

I armor up and get my mom’s mirror out of the bathroom. I push the cover of the crawlspace open and stick the mirror up the hole while shining my flashlight at the mirror for a little recon. I didn’t see anything. I climb up the ladder and realize that this job is going to be pain in the ass. There are 2x4’s nailed to the roof joists every other board and even if there weren’t there it is too tight to do anything more than a low crawl. So when I see her I’m going to be face level. My raccoon pellet gun isn’t looking as sexy as I thought because it’s one shot at a time. I’m not very spiritual but I would probably doubt that this stupid gun was a sign from up above if not for the fact that I knew that next time it would probably be a lot easier to put 7 cc’s of meds in my eyeball with a lot less of a problem than my damn finger. You gotta count the small miracles. 

I use a halogen spotlight and turn it on in the direction of the hole in the roof. I don’t see anything, but I hear a low warning growl that sounds like a civil rights attack dog coming from the general direction of the hole. I take my time and get as comfortable as I can in the tight space. I span the wooden hatch across a couple of floor joists and sit on it. I fold my legs Indian style, as I was taught many moons ago, and concentrate on my breathing. If I don’t drop her I have no idea what she’s going to do in her protective state. After a few minutes her tone changed. She started making noises that sounded like a combination of high pitched squeaks and some form of exotic bird chirps. Kinda like one of those raptors in Jurassic Park. I saw her right ear bobbing up and down as she was trying to see past my spot light but still remain in the shadows. I let her get more and more comfortable peaking into the light by not making a sound. I was amazed by how well his scope worked as I maintained a perfect cross hair point on her mask. Finally she peaked around the pink insulation but still was moving her head in a circle trying to project her vision past the glare of the light. I held my breath and started the slow steady squee… 

It’s time like this in the movies where the action guys always has a snappy little diddy they like to recite just before they shoot somebody. I felt that under the circumstances it was necessary to have a go at it myself. 

Some movies have the star saying something like “Hasta la vista …baby!” or even some bible quote. I guess it’s situational. It’s times like these when I think you should feel free to express yourself by whatever motivated you to pick up a gun in the first place.

“20 bucks for a blowjob my ass, bitch!” 

“Now who’s paying to get boned, bitch?” 

“Where’s my gerbil, bitch?” 

Or whatever you want. Like I said it’s situational.  

I went with a whispered, “There’s my boot, bitch.” 

*CRACK!!!!* 

She yelped like a dog and fell back. I couldn’t see where she hit the floor because apparently she fell between the floor joists so I couldn’t get a line of sight on her, but I heard no more noise or movement. Now I gotta crawl the entire length of this damn attic to get her. I reloaded my weapon and grabbed my ammonia bombs and started the long, dusty trek across the rafters and insulation, always making sure I keep my light in front of me. That made the trip three times as long as it should have been. 

When I get to the corner she’s gone. All I see is a trail of blood leading into a small hole that leads under the roof of the front porch. There’s no damn way I’m reaching in there. There’s no damn way I can fit in there. I’m going to have to rip down half the porch ceiling to get my damn boot. Besides I‘m willing to bet the bank that’s where her little bastards are. I unscrewed one of my bottles and untwisted the bag of goodies inside and put the cap on tight. I shook it three times and instantly felt the bottle expanding in my hand. I shoved it into the hole and waited for the pressure release. 

*FOOOOOOOOOSH!!!!!!!* 

I heard a variety of different pitched squeaking and growling and hollering. My bottle crunched from inside the wall as if something had bit it and then I heard a muffled combination of a sneeze and a cough then an exhaled sniff. I heard scouring and running of what sounded like a thousand little feet all moving with no particular direction. Then raccoons started popping out from in between the side wall and the floor as if I had pulled the lever on the slot machine. These were no damn “babies,” and if they were at one time they were just as worthless as Uncle Freakshow. I counted five in all. One caught on the snare, two were shot as fast as I could reload, and finally the momma who came up short in the crawlspace over the porch. The other two ran out of the attic and are at large. Call me if you see them. I sealed up the hole and had the roof re-sheeted.


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