A masked intruder.

It’s 2:00 am and here I am, because sleep won’t be coming soon and I need to write this down.

Preface: Blaine’s a heavy sleeper. He sleeps through almost everything. I can count on one hand the times he’s woken up to noises – and never before I had already woken up first. Until tonight.

We’re at a campground, and nightly raccoons have gotten into our hanging trash bags unless we’ve remembered to get it to the dumpster before bed. Two or three times we’ve had to pick up trash in the morning. Slow learners, I know.

Yesterday, the trash went to the dumpster. We’re catching on finally. It was a cooler day yesterday, so we didn’t have the fans running in the camper. Windows are open, and we kept hearing the coons into things around the camper. Several times Blaine was up because of the noise they were making. I put a pillow over my head and went back to sleep.

I woke up to a yell. I thought he was trying to scare it off, wondered what on earth it was into that was worth yelling about since the campsite is pretty well buttoned up for the night, and sat up blearily. Blaine was dragging Creed from bed and throwing him up onto a top bunk, did the same with Elliot and Stellan, and was carrying on about a raccoon.

Huh?

There was a raccoon inside the camper. He’d gone to investigate noises made again, thought a kid was up or Pierce was having a seizure, and a raccoon jumped out of the trash can that’s inside the camper.

Apparently it was upset that we’d put the outside trash in the dumpster?

We’d gone yesterday and gotten new screen because the screen in the camper door was loose in a corner and needed to be replaced. By the time we got back, it was dark outside and the screen replacement was put off until morning. It would seem the raccoon saw the loose corner and let himself in.

And that, my friends, is how we found ourselves chasing a raccoon around with a broom handle inside the camper at 2:00 am.

It neatly ran from the bunkhouse and outside… where it saw Eden and promptly ran back inside and into the master bedroom. We spent many minutes chasing it from one side of the bed to the other with a broomstick from on top of the bed, set up road blocks with fans before it finally launched itself out of the camper and left us in peace.

Except not peace. Because now nine kids are wide awake, a maze of fan blockades litter the camper, the kids declared that the mess that “no one made” yesterday might really not have been a kid, and another sadly declared that the night that will go down in infamy will not live in Liberty’s memories since she wasn’t here.

Sober way to end a hilarious hour. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long time. But the image of my husband in his drawers trying to outsmart a raccoon is not one I’ll forget too quickly.

One day soon I’ll post a video of the craziness. For now, there’s not enough phone service in these woods for frivolities. Sweet dreams, my friends. May the raccoons leave you – and your garbage – alone. I’ll be scrubbing the camper tomorrow and hoping we didn’t pick up fleas just now!