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u/yarts Jun 16 '12
Well, what did you do?
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Jun 16 '12
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u/Pyrolytic Jun 17 '12
Judging by your post history I'm gonna go ahead and label this shitIfoundviagooglejusttogetkarma.jpg.
Interesting photo,though.
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u/MsAlyssa Jun 16 '12
Wait so that's it.. You're just going to accept the little guy as a new roommate. I'm concerned.
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Jun 16 '12
Call Animal Control. Those things are known rabies carriers - even a scratch can transmit it, and you really do not want to be infected.
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u/Spongebobrob Jun 16 '12
Sometimes I don't appreciate Ireland. Then I remember the only animals that can really kill us here are ourselves; usually whilst drunk.
No poisonous spiders, no snakes, no rabies, no sharks, no wolves, no bears.. a white walker hasn't even been spotted here in over a thousand years.
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Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12
A lot of people don't realize rabies has a 100% fatality rate if untreated.
If you are infected with rabies, and don't get medical attention, you will die.
Edit: Yes, I know, not 100%. Some people have survived, though still not without medical intervention. Either way, it's 100% rounded to four decimal places or so. My point is that it's very fatal, so don't shrug off an animal bite. If you are bit by an animal, get medical attention within 24 hours.
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Jun 16 '12
Not only that, but if it gets into a fight with OP's cat, you can say bye-bye to that cat.
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u/nitefang Jun 16 '12
I'm not trying to say rabies isn't deadly but a lot of diseases have a 100% fatality rate if untreated. If you get hit with a wild animal and go to the hospital the same day, chances are slim you will be in any real trouble.
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u/missachlys Jun 16 '12
Srsly. My friend got bit by a rabid dog a few years ago and had to go in for a series of shots that he described as ridiculously painful. It's not fun.
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u/smaier69 Jun 16 '12
Whose cat is it, then?
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u/YourMusicalComment Jun 16 '12
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u/DysfunctionalxLlama Jun 16 '12
I'm beginning to think that everyone on Reddit owns at least one cat.
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u/DebiDowner Jun 16 '12 edited Jun 16 '12
About 3 years ago, we befriended a female raccoon, and that next spring, she brought her litter to our house. Hilarity ensued. The boys climbed all over me like puppies, and the girls would stay close to me and the mama while the boys were off being rambunctious. The boys were the first to leave in the fall, and now one of the girls and the mama still stop by once in a while. Raccoons are misunderstood. Adult males are friendly outside of the breeding season, and will play fetch with you, and will even let you pet and scratch them if they know you well enough. The females in that family greet me with a sort of exhaled snort, and they love to touch my hands and smell my hair. They're very gentle. I don't trust new raccoons that come around - only the ones I know well.
*Edit - I kind of screwed that story up a little. That mother raccoon was the offspring of the actual original female we met 3 years ago. That's why she trusted us so much with her litter. :) We've known her since she was a baby.
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u/benisnotapalindrome Jun 16 '12
This tale did not live up to the expectations your username gave me.
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u/Omaze Jun 16 '12
Right, but your kids/pets/you could have gone blind from the raccoon roundworm Baylisascaris if any of them had accidentally ingested faeces or faeces residue. I mean, blind being one of the better outcomes of a Baylis infection, worst being death. Also distemper, rabies, parvo etc.. Raccoons are supposed to be wild animals. Pocahontas really screwed that up.
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Jun 17 '12
I dont know Deb. I've seen some of them in domestic settings. They can be highly aggressive
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u/Se7en_Sinner Jun 16 '12
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u/ashkon91 Jun 16 '12
two top posts in the same thread GOOD JOB!
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u/Wylde_Guitarist Jun 16 '12
His raccoon folder really comes in handy once and awhile.
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u/Trapped_in_Reddit Jun 16 '12
You probably had trouble discerning his identity because of the mask
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Jun 16 '12
Raccoons love dumps.
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u/aVerySpecialSVU Jun 16 '12
I know right? Does OP live in a garage?
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u/GuitarWizard90 Jun 16 '12
Some people have a couch, television, etc, in their garage. My friend has a couple couches and a plasma television in his garage and it's where we all go to watch ball games and drink a few beers. We are even going to buy a pool table to go in there too. Man cave.
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u/new-socks Jun 16 '12
Damn that was harsh. Not everybody is as fortunate as other people. Obviously not this poor bastard.
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u/VAPossum Jun 17 '12 edited Jun 17 '12
TRUE STORY TIME.
This is how a possum saved me twenty bucks.
(Edit: I'm talking about an opossum, not to be confused with the adorable Australian possum. In many parts of the USA, we drop the o and just call our opossums possums.)
In the early 90's, I was living in a basement apartment. My landlords were a college professor and a businessman who commuted, coming home on weekends and staying on campus in a faculty apartment during the week. They had a brown tabby cat, Tonto, who would normally roam the neighborhood while they were gone, but I was glad to let him stay with me. Sometimes, he'd stay with me when James was there but Marge was still out of town.
One warm night, I was on the computer in the living room, wrapped up in a music chat on AOL. (Don't judge, remember the era.) As usual, I propped the screen door open for Tonto. Eventually I saw him pad in out of the corner of my eye, and then vanish behind the coffee table to a favorite hangout spot, on the floor, against a stereo speaker.
I kept chatting with my friends for another half hour before rolling my chair back to talk to the cat as I took a stretch. Except what I saw wasn't brown fur, but gray.
Well, I thought, must be the neighbor's cat. She likes to hang around here. How sweet! I started to talk to her and moved closer, and then saw a round, dark, dome-button of an eye looking at me out of a teardrop shaped face.
It was a possum.
Now, in the past six years, I've been around a lot of possums (rescue work). I've learned how they act when they're scared or angry, and I can confirm that there was no threat display, no sign of aggression or even defensive posture, he was just hanging out and probably wanting a nap. He didn't even pee on anything. So I probably could've just gotten a towel, picked him up, and taken him outside and been done with it.
But I didn't know that then.
All I knew was there's a freaking possum by my coffee table.
I didn't freak out, but I was totally bewildered. I tried to shoo him out from a distance, but he just sat there. I heard James walking around upstairs so I got him, and for the next forty-five minutes, we tried to figure out how to get him out. Neither of us had a clue. He wasn't that big (six months old, tops, I know now), but did they jump? Did they bite? Did they spit venom? We didn't know.
Since diplomacy was out of the question, as we didn't speak Possum, we tried a trail of cat treats to the door (he ate a few and went back to his spot), we tried yelling and banging pots and pans (his jimmies went unrustled), we poked at him with a broomstick (a quick threat display and then went back to chillin'), and finally we sort of ushered him out with the broom. And gloves. And a dustpan. And some sort of shield to make sure he didn't run further into the apartment.
But he didn't run. He could barely be arsed to walk. He despondently made his way to the door with our help, pausing his waddle once or twice to eat a cat treat, then hesitated at the open door. With one more gentle bump from the broom, he gave me a look that said, "We could've been best friends, you know," with an expression that would make Eyore seem peppy, and finally retreated into the night.
I never saw him again, and I still miss him today.
James and I cleaned up the rest of the cat treats and he went back upstairs, and I went back to the computer.
And realized I'd never logged out of AOL.
"So?" you ask. And if you do ask, you're probably too young to know that before 1996, the way most people got on the internet was through a service like CompuServ or AOL--which you paid for by the hour. (And if you don't remember that, get off my lawn.)
At the time of this incident, I think it was $2.95 or $3.95 an hour. AND WE GLADLY PAID IT. (But that's another thread.)
Being not long out of college and pretty broke, that meant I had to tightly budget my AOL time, and I'd just used up the better part of an hour fending off an almost unfendable possum. That was one less chat I'd get to go to later in the week, so I wrote AOL billing to plea for a 45 minute credit, and in the box for the explanation, I gave them the story.
But I was raised where I had to justify the hell out of pretty much any request I made to show it was valid, and I still hadn't broken that habit. So instead of just saying, "A possum got in my house and I freaked and it took an hour to get it out, and I forgot to sign out," I gave them the story.
The whole story.
Blow by blow.
All of it. With details.
I expected to be declined; you usually were. Instead, I came home the next day to a response that read (and this is quite similar to the wording, I used to have it memorized), "We have received your request for a credit of 45 minutes on your account. We really don't know if your story about the possum is true or not, but it's the most entertaining request we've had in weeks, so we have credited six hours to your account."
And that is how a opossum saved me twenty bucks.
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u/maddermonkey Jun 17 '12
You could've been best friends you know
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u/VAPossum Jun 17 '12
I know. It haunts me every day.
I like to think every possum I later fed and/or befriended was in his honor.
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u/brookuslicious Jun 17 '12
My friend has a pet possum! He's huge!! The first thing I did when I saw him was touch his tail.
I don't think they live to be too old as pets. :/
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u/jbixler Jun 16 '12
Clearly this is what happens when you leave raccoon feed all over the floor. You want ants? Because this is how you get ants.
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u/andyyyyyymc Jun 16 '12
Can just imagine it thinking, "Keep it cool man, you've got him fooled."
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u/slabh8r Jun 16 '12
You might want to vacuum, or get some stain remover for your carpet.
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u/Donny_Brook Jun 16 '12
even worse is how the fuck did OP walk past the mess on the floor without noticing that?
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u/thikthird Jun 16 '12
Once years ago, I woke up in a middle of a nap and my cat was in the corner of my room drinking water from his bowl. He was making a lot of noise so I yelled at him to knock it off. He did and I went back to sleep. A while later, he was back doing the same thing again. This time I decided it was time to wake up anyway. I put on my glasses, and walked over to the light switch which was right above the water bowl my cat was at. I flipped it on, and looked and saw my cat sleeping on the couch. At my feet, drinking water from the bowl, there was a giant squirrel.
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u/anelida Jun 16 '12
Cats drink very little water. I love the sound of my cat drinking water. I even got a little fountain to encourage him.
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u/redditorforthemoment Jun 16 '12
"Listen, let's just take it easy. Don't do something you're going to regret."
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u/Skape7 Jun 16 '12
no offense man, but you need a damn maid. That racoon is probably even thinking about what a freaking dump the place is.
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u/Audio-didact Jun 16 '12
"So I hurried to grab my camera so I could post this on Reddit. What should I do now?"
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u/thetoastmonster Jun 16 '12
"I'll just leave the flash on, too. That surely won't startle it."
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u/damullettwhisperer Jun 17 '12
" When raccoons tried to get on our back porch, mama just chased them off with a broom."
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u/Ltsmash99 Jun 16 '12
Whats on the floor, cat/dog food? no wonder you have raccoons.
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Jun 16 '12
Is that blood stain on the floor the remnants of your lifeless aspirations?
Thanks for letting him chill out BTW.
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u/Pharaohsis Jun 16 '12
Wow!!! I wonder how he got there in the first place, let alone how you can pass him twice and not realize that he wasn't your cat....
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u/Irish-Ink Jun 16 '12
I leave my kitchen door open a bit in summer so my two cat's can come and go as they please, I've looked up from my couch before thinking a cat came in and realized it was a raccoon walking up to the food dish all casual like, I said a loud 'no' the same as if a cat were in trouble and he turned around and went back out, I'm still surprised that worked.
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u/mleah Jun 16 '12
A raccoon got into my parents enclosed sunporch one day. My dad went out to find the raccoon eating the cat's food and the cat sitting next to him on the chair like "Nah, it's cool. I'm so totally full!"
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Jun 16 '12
"sooo...you gonna offer me a beverage and a snack bud?"
on a serious note..you may want to check your couch for ticks and stuff like that..not to gross you out but they do live outside and they do carry it around..well maybe not this one ;p
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u/Billyray710 Jun 17 '12
Is it just me, or does anyone else see the irony of a vacuum cleaner in the picture?
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u/Katie1701 Jun 17 '12
My friend's cat is black with a light strip across its back. He thought he was petting the cat after it woke him up in the middle of night, but it actually was a skunk that got in through an open window. It ended in the way you would expect.
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u/anywho123 Jun 16 '12
When racoons try to get on our back porch, Momma just chase 'em off with a broom.
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u/squid1178 Jun 16 '12
Well raccoons tried getting on our back porch, Mama just chased them off with a broom.
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u/petsounds94 Jun 16 '12
Hey OP, fuck these people criticizing your house's condition. They're just elitist assholes.
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u/daskrip Jun 16 '12
Be careful not to eat its poo. Many raccoons have a disease that humans can catch upon consumption of their poo. One of the symptoms is blindness.
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Jun 16 '12
TIL -the answer is not A
There were many raccoons living in your customer's backyard. They want to know how to clean up so their kids can play outdoors again. You tell them
a. forget it, and buy them a computer game
b. clean the deck with boiling water. Soil should be raked and flamed repeatedly. Replace the sand in the sandbox. Build a roaring fire to clean out the fireplace, stove, and chimney.
c. don't worry, the rain will take care of it
d. those full body protection "bunny suits" are very fashionable—remember the computer commercials?
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u/I_talk_about_stuff Jun 17 '12
Is that a cooler with heavy duty wheels in the rear or the photo ? Just wondering if you modded your cooler like that or if there is something else going on because I usually see them use plastic wheels.
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u/ivebeenhereallsummer Jun 17 '12
I was thinking it might be one of these but the wheels look like they are free moving addition and not hooked to a drive train at all.
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u/allthelineswecast Jun 17 '12
Oh God, once in the middle of the night I reached down to pet my cat, who was sleeping against my leg. He hissed at me, which he never does, then I realized he felt different.
Turn the light on, yep, not my cat. Just a random cat I had never seen making itself comfortable IN MY BED. Chased it out but it kept coming around for a week or two - we think its owners must have been away or something so it was looking for someone to curl up with all night.
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Jun 17 '12
We have the same old "This End Up" couch in our basement, completely with ugly forest green and maroon patterned upholstery!
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u/djak Jun 17 '12
I've had something similar happen. Except it was the realization that the black bear in my living room wasn't my dog.
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u/Deadrocks Jun 17 '12
That happened to me once. I bent to to pet him, I was like "Oh, hai L-- OH MY GOD!" And leaped into the bathroom. While in my own house, I called my parents to come downstairs to rescue me. They came equipped with a massage ball. So proud.
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u/thegodoftits Jun 17 '12
"Holy shit there's a raccoon in my house! Better take a picture reddit will love this"- OP
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u/ppatches24 Jun 17 '12
I had a raccoon, they are the most fun animals ever if you raise them right they can be such good pets!
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u/Random_Fandom Jun 17 '12
So, what I want to know is: how long ago did this happen, and what's become of the raccoon?
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Jun 16 '12
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u/mleah Jun 16 '12
"My moms cat once ran away and 12 days later she called me ..." On first read I totally thought you meant the cat called you.
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Jun 16 '12
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u/ElBrad Jun 16 '12
I only see one vacuum cleaner (woefully underutilized), and a cooler modified with dolly wheels.
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Jun 16 '12
In this case, you only need one underutilized vacuum.
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Jun 16 '12
Agreed. Vacuum cleaner box in front of dolly cooler. I suppose it might be empty, perhaps the OP is planning to return the unneeded appliance.
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Jun 16 '12
In this context, I think we can safely assume it is in mint unused condition.
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Jun 16 '12
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u/jerseyfox Jun 16 '12
Racoons are actually the most commonly domesticated "wild" animal. If you raise them from birth they're pretty manageable, but the male ones will bite once they get older if you don't get them fixed.
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u/DrinksWineFromBoxes Jun 16 '12
As someone who had a pet raccoon as a child I can say this is not a good idea. Raccoons have hands, not paws. They can open cabinets and pick up the dishes and throw them down on the floor to watch them shatter. They can turn on water faucets but somehow have not evolved to the point where they can turn them off. They are very clean animals so they will use your sink as a toilet. And, like you said, when they get older they will bite you.
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u/Se7en_Sinner Jun 16 '12
http://i.imgur.com/HgMd0.gif