I'm not cut out for CSI, not even Nancy Drew

Last night, I was comfortably tucked away in my bed when I heard this scratching noise outside. We have a cat so I thought I would just check and make sure she was inside and not locked out of the cat door. I hobbled to the back door (I'm still recovering from that ankle surgery) and found the cat door had not been closed. When I opened the back door, it crashed into something and I heard the sound of large and heavy being running away.

What I saw when I had turned on the porch light and got out the door was this enormous raccoon standing about 8 feet away in the yard. He was as large as a 2-year-old--a big, fat 2-year-old. Below me, scattered everywhere under my feet, was about a month's supply of my kitty's kibble. Laying next to it was the yogurt container in which I keep the kibble.

I realized, then, I had stumbled into a crime scene.

I bent down and examined what I had found (just like Grissom does). I realized that this huge, hungry, wild animal had come in through the cat door, gone upstairs, taken the yogurt container filled with kibble and brought it back downstairs. He had then shoved it out the back door and was sitting there enjoying the loot when I surprised him.

I looked up and he was still standing there, on his hind legs, staring at me. No, it's not that he was staring at me, rather he was staring me down. In a split second, I decided to protect the interests of my cat. So I stood up tall, shouted and banged my cane against the metallic railing. I looked as scary as I possibly could.

The raccoon, without breaking eye contact, came down from his standing position and charged a few steps ahead. He immediately stood back up on his hind legs and resumed his position of defiance. I could just hear him saying, "Oh yea? You and who else?--you three-legged sorry-excuse-for-a-primate! Bring it on!"

We were locked in a game of chicken and I could feel my nerve, just for a moment, falter. But I wasn't about to be run around by a raccoon. I didn't care how big he was. So I shouted again and banged my cane against the railing.

He charged ahead a few steps and stood up.

Something trickled down the back of my brain, saying, "ahhhhhh, wellllllllll, maybe the cat food isn't all that important." I ran (actually leapt with my one good foot) back inside, closed the door behind me, closed the cat door, locked both locks and stood with my back against the door gasping for breath.

I called out in the darkness to my housemate. "HellLLOOO??!!" He was upstairs and because my leg is in such bad shape, I can't get upstairs. So I went to my room, defeated.

In about 5 minutes I heard this noise in the kitchen. The first thing I thought was that the raccoon's accomplice had been trapped in the kitchen. Sheepishly, I opened my bedroom door which leads into the kitchen and found it was my housemate. I excitedly explained about the enormous raccoon, the stolen goods on the back porch, the close encounter. We laughed together as he had told me about meeting this raccoon a few days earlier. Then, as he went to retrieve the kibble, I cried out in genuine fear, "Be careful!!!" He just looked at me, you know, with "the look."

Very quietly I went back in my room, got into my bed and put the pillow over my head...