Wild Thing

One of the things I like about living in a small(ish) town is that the police blotter in the local paper is usually pretty entertaining. This was true of St. Helena, the bucolic Napa Valley hamlet where David and I got married and started our family, and it's also true of Laguna Beach, a larger but equally quirky community. Incidents involving errant wildlife seem to be a common theme--skunks with their heads caught in peanut butter jars, that sort of thing. The blotter in today's Laguna Beach Independent included a raccoon incident which gave me some pause. Apparently a rabid raccoon got into some unlucky person's house through a dog door, and then proceeded to terrorize the resident dogs and cat. The homeowner managed to chase the wild thing into a bathroom and shut the door. But by the time the animal control officer arrived to cart away the raccoon, it had literally destroyed the bathroom, like bad-ass rock-band-on-tour, trash-the-hotel-room type destruction. Holy cow.

Who knew a raccoon

could tear down drywall, break glass

and smash a toilet?