And today was a bright, sunshiny day.
You see, dear readers, we've been having problems with a raccoon in our backyard. This particular raccoon has been known to come onto the back porch and eat the cats' food. It walks with a strange gimpy gait, and comes out in broad daylight. It shows no fear of humans, nor even any regard.
Well, its life ended today. I had to kill it myself.
But don't think that I didn't try other options first. I called Animal Control, where a woman told me she had no idea how a raccoon was supposed to act. My reaction to this was "What? And you work for Animal Control?" She gave me some other numbers to call, including Marion County Animal Control, and the Fish and Game service.
Long story short: Marion County Animal Control does not actually come and capture animals with that noose-stick we've all seen. They set traps. Problem is, this raccoon was being fed bread by our neighbor, and wasn't going to take the bait for a trap.
The folks at Fish and Game were even less helpful. They informed me that with increased development and diminishing habitats, wild animals are being forced into urban and suburban areas. I'd seen the PBS documentary on this, so none of it was news to me. Anyway, they weren't going to do anything either.
So as I sat on the back porch today, I caught the slight suggestion of a gimpy gait over at the edge of the yard, where the neighbor puts out the bread. Also, I heard a rustle in the bushes. I went over to investigate.
Sure enough, I found that raccoon behind our woodpile eating bread. He didn't seem to care about my presence either. So, naturally, I went back to the porch and got my air rifle.
Now, when I say air rifle, I'm talking about a serious piece of equipment. It has the muzzle velocity of a .22, and this particular air rifle is more like a sniper rifle. Nice scope on it, and a baffle silencer at the end of the barrel.
I loaded this instrument of destruction and went back to find my quarry. He was right where I left him, which made it simple to shoot him at point-blank range.
All hell broke loose. The raccoon was dying, and was doing it in a very animated fashion. Now, as we all should know, if you wound an animal you are hunting without killing it outright, you are compelled to track the animal down and finish the job. This I did with a baseball bat.
So, the moral of the story is that Animal Control is useless, and that the only thing that will get rid of your yard-varmints is brutal vigilante justice.
See, psychotic Marines will always be useful.
I'm okay. Really. In fact, I was okay immediately afterwards. You know how sometimes when you're feeling sick, you throw up and then you feel all better? This was one of those.
Actually, I had to blow my nose to get some vomity mucus out, but after that I felt all better.
I think it was because I hadn't been drinking carbonated things for a while, and then I went and drank quite a few carbonated things in a fairly short time, because I was thirsty.
That turned out to be a bad decision.
But, of course, I'm not making a post just to report that I threw up. I'm not even making a post to brag that I threw up spectacularly. Which I did. I calculated 19 square feet were tainted, not counting of course the parts that made it into the toilet. Imagine a rectangle three feet across, and six feet long. That's 18 square feet. That's a lot.
I even managed to get it on a wall four feet away from the bathroom door, and three feet high on that wall. To clarify, this wall was not in the "line of fire" in any way. I have no idea how the hell I pulled that off.
But, I'm not making a post to brag that I threw up spectacularly. That's why I'm not going to describe texture and consistency in all their glory. This is about what happened right afterwards.
I called my Memere. (That has two accents in it, but this typing instrument has no accents in it. Sorry, Memere.) I had to call her because I didn't know how to clean up vomit. I had never cleaned up my own vomit before. There were always other people for that.
(Once I did get forced to clean up my own vomit on a schoolbus by a fascist bitch busdriver. She made me use newspapers. This was completely wrong of her to do, because there was no place for me to vomit that would have been okay.
She would not pull over the schoolbus, nor would she provide a suitable container into which I could vomit. I could not vomit into my schoolbag, because it was full of valuable assignments and expensive textbooks that were not mine.
I was out of options. I did not deserve what she made me do. I hope she burns in Hell. Maybe not eternally, but just for a while. Then they can move her to the part of hell without burning, but with the itch that makes the inmates tear their flesh.
But I digress.)
So, I had to call out for help to find out how to clean up my vomit. Memere was very helpful, as was the fact that I have a very dark green carpet which I imagine would be impossible to permanently blemish except with bleach or ink.
I won't go into the details of the operation. Those who want an idea of how it went can think of Jules and Vincent cleaning up Marvin in the Nova in "The Bonnie Situation" vignette of Pulp Fiction. That should do nicely.
My point, at which I had to arrive eventually, is that as we become fully-fledged adults, we realize there are things we do not know how to do, because we have never done them. I'm not talking just about cleaning up vomit, although that is a fine example. I recently had to ask my mommy how to do my taxes.
It's very humbling to have to ask these things, because one would think "since I am an adult, I should know all this adult stuff, having learned it from somewhere or someone or just through diffusion".
It's almost embarrassing. You take on that embarrassed posture: rounded shoulders, toes together, one hand on the back of your neck, and say "Dad, what's an escrow? The guys I'm buying my new house from keep talking about it." You know what? It's not almost embarrassing. It is embarrassing. Come on, you're buying a house and you don't know these things?
Your parents, or at least one of them, have said at least once to you, "you know you can always ask me anything." I'm pretty sure that the sorts of questions we've been discussing aren't the ones they mean. I won't give examples of the kind they mean, except to say they are about reproductive processes and fluids.
Back to my own vomiting incident (the one from today), I have to say that I made my 19-square-foot mess because I faltered at the moment of truth. I was midway between my two bathrooms, and two feet from the linoleum part of my floor. Instead of just bolting for one or the other bathroom, I took a moment to consider of which one I'd rather make a mess. I chose the guest bathroom, too late to make it there. In retrospect, I should have stayed put and hit the linoleum.
My mom always made the same split-second decision whenever one of us kids was going to spew it. She stuck her hands out to catch it. I have always viewed this as one of the true marks of motherhood: the instinct (yeah, instinct, it was too fast for a considered decision) to catch the vomit of your child in your hands.
She says she always did that because it's easier to wash your hands than the carpet.
I refuse to believe there was any such thought process going on. She did it because she was a mom. I didn't even do that for myself today. I tried to use one hand to hold it back for a few precious seconds. That doesn't really matter.
So, morals for the story. Be careful when you drink things that are fizzy. When you are absolutely ready to chuck it, forget bathrooms and go for the linoleum. Some schoolbus drivers need to go to Hell, but all Mommies who will catch your vomit in their hands will go to heaven.
And most importantly, even as you move from being a "young adult" (read "empowered idiot teenager") to being a slightly older and more experienced adult, you are still an idiot. Go ahead and ask your folks all your stupid questions. You'll always find it mortifying, but they'll always find it so cute.
