18 July 2005

What They Didn't Warn Me About in Law School

It's Sunday night and I've just spent a few hours at my office prepping
for Monday. I head out with last week's accumulated trash (two
cardboard boxes and a hefty bag). The parking lot is dead quiet (it's
late and I'm the only idiot working on Sunday night). I pull around to
the other side of the building, park the car, and get out with the first
box of trash for the dumpster.

Out of the corner of my eye I see movement but when I turn to look
there's nothing there. All that I see is a dark corner and a sewer
drain. It must have been a cat or my mind playing tricks on me.

The dumpster's one of the smaller ones with the plastic tops you open in
order to throw things into it. One lid is propped open because someone
has piled that side full of computer boxes. I go over to the other
side, open it, and throw a box in. Then I go back and get the bag.
Again, I open the other side and I'm heaving the bag in

A HEAD POPS UP

I do a backward jump which would make the denizons of the Matrix proud.
The head had popped up right under the hand I was holding the lid with
and as I lept back, the lid came down trapping my bag of trash half way
in.

AND THE HEAD CONTINUES TO STARE AT ME.

There's a fence around the dumpster making the lighting bad so it takes
me a second . . .

It's a raccoon.

Which, of course, means there are others in and around the dumpster.
And, typical of many raccoons, it isn't the least bit frightened of me.
It just stays there staring at me. I ponder for a moment whether I
should find a stick and try to shove the bag fully in. However, there
are no sticks nearby and after a moment of picturing myself with a
couple raccoons latched onto my arm the HeMan instincts fade.

I walk back to my car, keeping an eye on the raccoon watching me from
the dumpster and the other on the sewer drain ('cuz I dang well know I'm
being watched from there as well).

And thus ends The Great Raccoon Incident of 2005.

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