Making Your Own Fun

My parents (both pair) are nuts.

My Dad and his wife are big Facebook fans. So much so, that I now have to ask myself, What Would Dad Think. I rush to remind my friends, who often enjoy posting moderately suggestive things on my wall, that my dad can read them!  One particularly embarassing exchange took place on my anniversary, when the "if the house is a'rockin', don't come a knockin'" comment was made. Red-faced, I rushed to post that my DADDY could read that. My dad, then posted  that he knew it was a school night and that I'd be in bed early.  I was so embarassed! Like I said in an earlier post, there are just somethings that a daddy should not know.

My Mother and her husband, The Chief,  have this quasi-feral cat that they have been feeding for the better part of three years. They have named him "Oreo" because of his black and white coloring. They have NEVER been able to put their hands on him. He will nearly kill himself to escape even the mildest hint of human contact. But every day, Oreo makes his way to my Mother's back door for his twice-daily meals. She frets over him when doesn't show up for a few days, They bring him treats. They made him a house when it snowed. But they have never touched him.

At any rate, Mother noticed that something was going on with his food a few weeks back. She would feed him, his bowl would be empty, but he would always seem hungry.  Then one night, on a late-night kitchen trip, she discovered the culprit. A large racoon was busy helping himself to Oreo's food. On the deck, two stories off the ground.  Oreo looked on from the corner of the deck, obviously annoyed but visibly helpless.

And with that, "Operation Raccoon Roundup" began.

The Chief purchased a large critter trap and set it up on the deck. Then they waited

I recieved this recent thread of emails from my Mother. It was forwarded from The Chief

           From: The Chief
           To: Everyone Important in Address Book 
           Sent: Fri, August 17, 2012 8:12:15 AM
            Subject: Dum-da- dum-dum (Dragnet Theme)

It was warm in Irondale, I was working the night watch stake out detail out of robbery. I had been assigned to the late shift in the hopes of capturing an elusive thief who had been pilfering food from a Mr. Oreo. Mr. Oreo described the suspect as short and fat, wearing a brown coat with stripes. He was also described as wearing a mask. We had set up a sophisticated closed circuit TV feed to monitor the sites of the previous thefts, but as with all city equipment, the battery began to die on the equipment after about four hours. Totally unreliable. My partner has already gone 10-42 but, being the dedicated person I was, decided to give it another 15 minutes. It was 00:20 when my well trained ears detected the metallic "clank" of the door on the trap spring shut. I jumped into action and saw that the suspect had fallen into our trap. There, frantically running back and forth, was the culprit, trapped like a rat in the temporary holding cell. I immediately ran and awakened my partner and we took mug shots of the suspect while still inside the cell. I advised him of his rights but he remained silent. Since we could not locate Mr. Oreo to sign a warrant, we were forced to release the suspect without any further action. We decided to do some old fashion "cross boundary" policing. We transported the suspect to Leeds, AL near the Bass Pro shop just across the city limits. We sternly admonished the suspect not to return to Irondale or he may suffer a more grievous fate. We released the suspect and he hurried across the pavement toward the wood line. At the last minute he turned and looked at my partner and I as if to say, "You haven't seen the last of me copper," when I made a threatening move toward him so as to let him know who was boss and he scurried off into the brush, coward that he was. Thus ends the case of the "Masked Bandit."  Or, so they thought. The next night, my mother spotted another racoon on the deck! She ran to alert the sleeping chief, who was less than amused at the time. The next afternoon, he set up the trap again. The next morning, the food was gone, but the trap was empty!    Apparently, this racoon was really smart. And big enough to reach thru the trap. So my parents devised a little plan where they placed a garbage bag around the food so that it was not easily reached.  The next morning, they found the trap, again empty, save the shredded garbage bag! So the Chief, not to be outdone, set the trap on the most sensitive setting. The wind would have set it off (and they worried that might happen).   This morning, I recieve this:   BREAKING NEWS...................... From the Total Action News Watch Plus news desk comes breaking news. Irondale authorities are reporting the capture of the second member of the notorious gang of marauding creatures know as "Rockies Gang." Authorities report that at approximately 2 a.m. Friday morning, Rockette Racoon, known female associate of previously apprehended Rocky Racoon, was captured without incident at the same location where Rocky was captured last week. An unnamed source reported that Rockette Racoon was transported and successfully released in the vicinity where Rocky Racoon was banished last week. There are rumored to be pictures of Rockette taken just after her capture but this report has not been confirmed. Stay tuned for further news updates.