Open Letters
An Open Letter to the Raccoon That Lives in My Basement
You’re so much more than just a giant rodent that’s taking advantage of me.
Dear Rocky,
First of all, I’d like to apologize for thinking you were a groundhog. But it’s dark in my basement, and you’ve taken up residence in an old coal chute in a hundred-year-old house, so cut me some slack. I’ve got a lot going on, not least of which is ancient electrical wiring, snakes in my bedroom, and now a feral tub of lard who contributes nothing towards the heating bill.
Somehow you came in from the outside (I’m still trying to Nancy Drew that one), chewed through the drywall compound and screening that covered the hole in the basement wall, and then ALSO chewed through the plastic utility bucket that I shoved into the hole as a barrier, pushing big chunks of tooth-pocked plastic back out as if to taunt me.
So I shoved another utility bucket into the hole. The same thing happened.
So THEN I shoved in some metal gutter-guard screening that I had laying around, and you took it. Why? Why do you need metal screening? What in God’s name are you doing in there? I hear a lot of noise at night — hammering? Welding? Are you constructing your raccoon kingdom?
