Guess Who's Coming To Dinner

For a while I lived on the third floor of a three story apartment building. We had big wooden porches in the back with an external stairway. One day I heard some kids outside sounding like they were chasing something alive around the area. The noise was coming from the street, so I went out to the back to escape it. After being out there for a little while I noticed a pair of eyes staring at me from the dark of the overhead rafters. It was a raccoon.

After talking to her for a while and offering some dog biscuits, I got her to come down and visit for a bit. She was very scrawny and kinda mangy looking. She started coming by on a regular basis to visit and get some handouts. She slowly began to get fat and her coat was looking nice and eventually she was coming inside. I even introduced my roommate to her.

Then she stopped coming around. I didn't know if she got sick of my food, found better offerings elsewhere, or became roadkill. Probably just as well, I thought, because I had been looking to move pretty soon. I'd even found a new place to rent and was due to move out about two weeks after I'd last seen her.

My last day at the apartment I was taking a look around to make certain I'd not forgotten anything and guess who was on the porch? I went out to talk to her one last time, relieved she was alive and worried about what might have kept her away for so long. She looked so skinny!

Looking up in the rafters I saw the reason. And the reason for her dramatic weight loss. She'd brought her kids over to introduce them to me.
















Sorry, no pictures of the young ones. My camera was at the new place. I hoped the new tenants liked raccoons.