Raccoon Ambush

Raccoons are tricky animals. They look kind of adorable but it turns out they're actually blood thirsty monsters. I know that last bit to be true because I experienced their vicious blood lust first hand as a child.

When I was about twelve, my family went camping with my mom's brother and his family. When the fire was out and it was time to go to bed, the parents slept in one tent and the kids slept in another one. We sat in our tent and played cards instead of going to sleep, and after a while we went out to the picnic table to eat some potato chips. And then we were all scarred for life.

We were only out there for a minute or two before we saw the first pair of glowing eyes peering out from the brush. Then we saw another. And another. Then a pack of raccoons crept toward us through the dark. They did not look like ordinary raccoons. Those things were obviously well fed from the crampground scraps and I swear some of them were the size of full grown collies. They kept inching closer, growling and hissing as they tried to edge in front of each other. They were frighteningly aggressive and they had us surrounded.

We realized they were after our potato chips, and my cousin, Jimmy, threw a handful off to the side, hoping it'd distract the raccoons and open up a route for escape. It kind of worked; some of them started fighting over the crumbs, but four or five more came out of nowhere and took their spots. So then we tried throwing the whole bag. But the same thing happened and those godless killers thought we still had more.

Trapped on the tabletop, the four of us huddled together pretty much accepting our fate as a scary campfire story to tell future generations. Finally, my dad poked his head out of the tent to investigate all the commotion. He was actually kind of surprised by the number and size of the raccoons, too. He came out with a pillow and shooed them away while we practically dove into our tent in unison.

I swear to God, the next day we found raccoon blood around the campsite from when those monsters were fighting each other. Obviously, we barely escaped with out lives.