The TALE of the RACCOON and the GARBAGE BAG

It was a dark and stormy night......

Isn't that a cliche story beginning? But guess what.....it really was a dark and stormy night when the tale of the raccoon and the garbage bag took place so sit back, get comfy and listen, er, well....read.

Date: Monday, June 27th, 2011 ~ Tuesday, June 28th, 2011 (barely)

Setting: A private campground at Eagle Creek, Oregon right near Bonneville Dam

Why: A family reunion for my mom's side of the family

The campfire was through, the stories were told, teeth were brushed and we had settled into bed for the night. Though Jay, Katie and Tyler had to stay home in Salem and work, Anna, Rachel and I had headed for the Columbia Gorge for the night to see family. Because we were only going for one night, my parents had graciously offered us some room in their tent. After the appropriate amount of talking in the tent, we all fell asleep. At 12:06, (now you understand the above mentioned barely) Rachel woke me up, saying she needed to use the bathroom. Anna decided she needed to come as well, so I fumbled for the flashlight, found it and then had trouble with the zipper because there is an inner and outer flap. This fumbling caused my parents to awaken and help us escape the confines of the tent. The girls and I made it to and from the bathrooms. As I was coming back into the tent, my mom was just getting up to make her own trip to the bathroom. As I don't like walking by myself in dark, unknown places, I got the girls settled and went back with my mom. On the walk back from the bathroom, I mentioned that, though we were in a private, gated campground, a random hobo could walk up the hill from the train tracks and we'd be left unprotected. Let me just say that I hate when I think things like this. My body goes into panic mode because of my overactive imagination. Despite the nervouseness I now felt, we got settled back into our sleeping bags. Everything was fine for about 5 minutes........

when I heard a stick crack outside the tent, and then another and then a rustling sound. Cursing my ominous statement of strangers in our camp, I sat straight up, wondering how I was going to protect my girls, my parents and myself. I grabbed for the flashlight and tried to shine it out of the tent. I felt as though I was in a horror movie.....the kind when the dumb girl always shines a light and sees her attacker seconds before her demise. My love for all things scary, not gory, but scary and suspenseful had come back to haunt me. At first I saw nothing. My mom suggested I hold the flashlight closer to the tent wall for a better view. I moved the flashlight closer and then saw a GIANT raccoon. Okay....so it wasn't a crazed hobo, but raccoons can be rabid and this one was staring straight back at me, eyes glowing in the light of the flashlight. And it was only about 6 feet away. Yikes!

We shouted at it, hoping to scare it away from the confines of the tent, but this was a complacent raccoon and he/she kept happily ripping the garbage bag, ignoring us completely. Great.

My dad then stood up and announced that he was going out. As he rose and started exiting the tent, I realized that he was dressed only in his, well for lack of a better description, underclothes. He left the tent thusly dressed armed only with a flashlight. Earlier in the evening, we had all laughed at a story of my grandfather's car horn going off in the middle of the night, and he, dressed similarly, had run outside armed with only a slipper and beaten the hood of the car with the slipper until the horn went off. As I watched my dad exit the tent, I suggested since he was dressed in a similar outfit to my grandpa, he also use a slipper to beat the raccoon. He didn't take me up on my suggestion, though he did laugh. So.......scantily clad, but not armed with a slipper, he chased the raccoon back into the thicket and then lit the lantern so he could see the damage. Garbage was everywhere.....banana peels, cantaloupe rinds, the girls' leftover hamburger buns, etc. My dad, the quintessential scout, had forgotten to put the garbage into the can. The raccoon had been busy, as there were at least 14 different chew holes into the bag. Other relatives had raccoon paw prints on their coolers we later learned, but we had been the jackpot. My dad searched the other picnic table where he had his utensils and other items, including a Hallmark shopping bag filled with small pieces of wood my dad had chopped for starting a fire. This bag had been dumped, possibly after the raccoon realized it was only full of wood and not goodies. At this point, my dad was running around our campsite, still dressed just in his underclothes and sandals with socks, with a lantern in one hand and a Hallmark shopping bag in the other. The humor hit my mom and I at the same time. We laughed and laughed at the look of my dad running around as we gathered garbage from off the ground.

I wish I had gotten out my phone and gotten a video. I thought about it, but decided against it due to my dad's outfit. But had he been dressed otherwise, it wouldn't have been as funny. A good ol' catch 22.

The next morning, we regaled the rest of our family with the tale of the raccoon and the garbage bag. Our visit to Bonneville Dam, where my grandfather had worked when my mom was a teenager wasn't complete without a trip to each and every gift shop where a different family member joked about buying a raccoon stuffed animal for my father.

So that's the tale of the raccoon and the garbage bag. I've been laughing about it for a couple days. I thought you just might enjoy it too.........