Wacky Racky

Anybody who read my monkey blog knows that growing up my family had some odd pets. They had some odd kids too, but that’s another story.

This fascination with atypical pets extended to a couple aunts and some cousins as well. One of these cousins (the same guy who had a weird fondness for sticking paperclips into electrical sockets no matter how many times it knocked him on his can—also a story for another time) had a pet raccoon named Racky. (I know, and all of you enthralled with that very original name please feel free to nik it.)

As far as raccoon’s go, Racky was pretty tame and mostly allowed the run of the house (though dangling your fingers over the side of an easy chair was an open invitation to get yourself nicknamed “stumpy”.) Racky had one particularly odious habit, however.

This raccoon, primarily a nocturnal poop like his bandits-in-arms, slept on my cousin’s bed. He’d stay awake till my cousin nodded off, then promptly burrow beneath the covers and whiz between my cousin’s legs.

Why? God knows how raccoons think, but I’m sure he got some maniacal pleasure out of the act. The sentiment wasn’t nearly as appreciated by the human members of the household, my cousin in particular, though he kept letting it happen so you have to wonder who was the smarter of the two.

Remind me sometime to tell you about the lop-eared bunny who used to let go on my pillow…. --H