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Jodene

reads, writes, speaks, listens & does lots of hand holding

the best description of me is in my words- please read the posts and there you will find me ...

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Rabid Raccoons

So I mentioned a squirrel using a crosswalk in the last blog, which turned into a fantastic conversation about all the little woodland critters we’ve plowed over with 2,000 pounds of metal. Naturally I couldn’t let a happy topic like that go, so here is my delightful story of the rabid, rabies infested raccoon. Best put on your seatbelts for this one.

I grew up in San Diego- that city (and Los Angeles) that New Yorkers like to make fun of and they’re probably right. We’re a bunch of wimps. Oh no! The thermometer dipped below 65 degrees- I may freeze to death! Yes. These are the people I’m talking about. In high school I ran over a bunny rabbit and came home sobbing. My mom reassured me they would call the Humane Society (you have to trust an organization with the word “humane” in it) to make sure it was dead. I wanted to know what would happen if it wasn’t. She patted my shoulder and reassured me they would “handle it”. I slept comfortably that night.

Many moons later I was living in Michigan, where dead carcasses of large animals on the side of the road is no big whoop. I was driving home from a friend’s home at night. There was a tremendous dip in the road and as I was barreling along, no doubt much faster than the speed limit posted, I lost control of my VW Golf for a few second, certain I’d hit a moose. I’m not sure if there are actually moose in Michigan but I was new to the state and I might as well have been in a different country where moose roam freely. Don’t get me started on the wild turkeys and wolverines. Anyhow, when I looked in the rearview mirror, blinking away tears and screaming at nature for being “STUPID!” on my way up the other side of the dip, I saw a giant mass of black and gray fur in the center of the road. I pulled over to stop crying and give my apologies to Mother Nature- not before telling her it was probably the animal’s own fault for running under my front tire.

As soon as I got home I phoned my friend from whose home I was coming when Bullwinkle ran into the road. I started crying again. She reassured me that it was likely a raccoon since they came out that time of year to mate. Of course I cried harder when I thought about running over a mama raccoon and her little babies- blinking wide eyed on the side of the road, now lost and probably wandering into the road being picked off by radials one by one. She said it was probably a male. With rabies. Apparently, according to this wise animal guru, when raccoons get rabies they become suicidal. It’s nature’s way of promoting a Darwin approach to population control. She reassured me, yet again, that I was doing the raccoon and human population a favor by killing a rabid, suicidal raccoon. Of course! I was a hero!

A year later, I mentioned that I saw a raccoon and asked if she remembered how upset I was about the raccoon and how she made me feel better. She began laughing hysterically and said, “What? You believed me? I made it up!”