Klowns in my Koffee

Our upstairs neighbor has the nursery all decorated and is awaiting the birth. Unfortunately, the upstairs is our attic and the decorating may consist of piles of feces and chewing up the electrical cables. This is the continuing saga of the raccoon in our attic.

I had Jim, the wildlife control expert, come out and inspect today. We confirmed that the big hole in my soffit is actually a big hole in my soffit. Jim is incredibly and almost disturbingly knowledgeable about raccoons and their living and mating habits. It would seem that a wild party has been taking place over our heads that puts to shame anything that happened beneath it.

In the early winter, one or more mature females and perhaps some younger females and males looked for a nice place to spend the cold months. They decided that my shabby house with its weak and damaged soffits might be a good place to dig into, literally. Winter passed. During the January thaw, they got frisky and invited the raccoon versions of John Mayer, Jesse James and Tiger Woods to join them for a little party over at my place. Things got out of hand as they often do according to those movies about Spring Break. The boys didn't really intend on calling the next day and the lady raccoons walked home in the morning in their high heels and slutty dresses.

According to Jim, this is what happens next. The alpha female raccoon gets crabby, demanding and territorial. (So she's exactly like me in a fur coat and a mask.) She drives the other raccoons from the nest and claims the whole area for her nursery. Once her pups are born, any perceived threat would be greeted with claws, teeth and fury. (I once knew an HR director who reacted in a similar fashion. I'm surprised there's not a special on the Discovery Channel about that.)

So, how do we get them out? After the pups are born, we will be able to confirm this by hearing them make squeaky baby sounds. We will call Jim and he paints the entrance hole in the soffit with a concoction that sounds like it is only slightly less odoriferous than Brittany perfume. He calls is "boar juice" since apparently male raccoons are "boars." It is a mixture of male raccoon feces, chopped up testicles and other ingredients that he declined to mention for the sake of delicacy. It frightens me to think what might be less delicate than feces and chopped up testicles. Jim is a font of knowledge and explained that this mixture could be purchased commercially or one could make it if you happened to have a lot of raccoon testicles lying around. I chose not to pursue the question of which of these two methods Jim was going to use.

When the mother raccoon smells the boar juice, she thinks that the male raccoon is there to kill her children whether or not they keep calling him "Fatty." (Note to my husband.) She moves the pups to safety in some nice hollow tree or a neighbor's shed and then we close up the hole. [The neighbors then call Jim to get the raccoon out of their shed and the cycle repeats.]

After the outside is repaired, we get to figure out how much internal damage has been done to the attic and if all the insulation will have to be removed and replaced.

To summarize the day, I'm paying a man $125 to rub crap on the outside of my house.

The other thing that I accomplished today was to finish and mail my state income taxes. To put this in perspective, this is like paying a man $440 to rub crap on the outside of my house. But at least it is done.

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And, yes, I've been working on the job stuff every day. It's sort of boring to write about but I'll give an update tomorrow. In the meanwhile, here's a guy with real job hunting issues:
http://unemployedstormtrooper.com/