Doodle

A normal weekday morning around here usually consists of Caroline waking up, eating Lucky Charms (without milk) in my bed and watching “Little Einsteins”. I like to use this time for some quiet meditation and deep breathing, also known as getting an extra twenty minutes of sleep courtesy of the television while my child essentially eats marshmallows for breakfast.

I’d like to think she’s actually eating the cereal portion of the Lucky Charms, but I’d be kidding myself.

After “Little Einsteins” is over, I head to Caroline’s closet while whispering a silent prayer for patience and wisdom and then pick out three clothing offerings. I carry them into my bedroom like a diligent lady-in-waiting and say “Would it please madam to choose her apparel for the day?”

Right.

In reality, I lay out the three choices on my bed while attempting to strategically position the one I hope she’ll choose. That never works, by the way. I inform her that these are her three options and most days she waves her hand over them and says, “None of them!” with a mouth full of magically delicious marshmallows.

And then the wrangling begins.

“Oh yes. You’re going to wear one of them, so hurry up and decide or you’re going to be late.”

Realizing she has to choose from the garments before her, she’ll roll her eyes and try to negotiate various combinations of socks, jeans and shirts, while I issue threats along the lines of “Maybe we should just give these cute boots to some little girl who would LOVE to have a new pair of boots” or “If you wear those brown leggings with a brown t-shirt and nothing over it, you’re going to look like a piece of poo.”

Finally, she is dressed and ready for school so we go to her bathroom to brush her teeth, which is usually completely uneventful.

Until yesterday morning.

She was waiting for me to help her get the toothpaste on her brush when she asked, “Mama, WHAT’S THAT?” while pointing at the window.

I glanced over at the window and said, “It’s a spider, but it’s on the outside.”

“No, not the spider! The other thing!”

“It’s the spider’s web. Come on, we need to brush your teeth and get going!”

“Mama, there really is something. I see something fuzzy out there!”

Wanting to clear this up once and for all, I really look out the window and don’t see anything.

“I don’t see anything.”

“No, Mama. Look over there. It’s fuzzy!”

And then I really look at where she’s pointing.

This is what I saw.

The untrained eye might not know what that is, but I knew immediately that it was a raccoon perched on the neighbor’s chimney.

You see, the house next door to us has been vacant for some twenty plus years. The short story is the elderly owners passed away and left the house to their two grown children who haven’t been able to agree on what to do with the house. So while they’ve spent the last twenty years bickering and arguing, their parents’ home has turned into some sort of shelter for wayward raccoons.

I’ve tried to get the city to condemn it or whatever it is they do to old, abandoned houses but, apparently, “IT JUST LOOKS SO TACKY!” isn’t really enough grounds to bulldoze a home.

Anyway, I see the raccoon and since I am highly skilled in all things wildlife related, I immediately begin to bang loudly on the bathroom window in an attempt to get the raccoon to turn around or run away or something.

It doesn’t budge.

I bang loudly again.

Nothing.

Caroline is taking all this in, looks me straight in the eye and says, “Mama, I think he’s dead.”

“Well, maybe he’s just sound asleep.”

“No, he’s dead.”

Oh my little optimist.

She decides I’m not getting the job done and runs off to find the big guns, otherwise known as Daddy. I can hear her yelling, “DADDY! THERE’S A RACCOON AND MAMA KNOCKED ON THE WINDOW AND MAYBE HE’S SLEEPING BUT HE’S PROBABLY DEAD!!”

They head outside to do some up close investigation which basically involves P throwing a stick at the raccoon to see if it moves. It doesn’t.

Then I hear a loud thunk which I find out later was P throwing a large piece of firewood at the raccoon. Still no movement.

The raccoon is dead.

We’re not sure what caused his demise. I’d like to think he just curled up peacefully and died in his sleep, but I have a feeling in that house it’s every raccoon for himself and there may have been some foul play involved.

Speaking of foul, P is going to have to get rid of that corpse posthaste or it’s going to give us a whole new appreciation for the phrase, “It smells like something crawled up there and died”.

And of course if Caroline asks what happened to the raccoon, I may tell her that he argued with his mama one too many times about what to wear to school in the morning.