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because I slept through the whole ordeal.

After catching "Rocky" Sunday night, Dad cleaned out and re-baited the trap. Around 10:00 last night, I heard some rattling, so I went upstairs and saw some of the peanut butter gone but the trap door was still up. I'm thinking the clever little bugger just reached a tiny paw through the bars and swiped the peanut butter. By the time I went to bed around midnight, I'd not heard another sound.

This morning, I *thought* I heard Dad up and moving around 5:00 AM but I just assumed it was a nocturnal trip to the bathroom so I went right back to sleep. I got up at my usual time--around 7:30 AM--and Dad was in the garage riding his exercise bicycle (which is nothing more than a rusty old bike that I got for free, propped up on a couple milk crates. Because we're bougie like that). When he came in, he asked me how I'd slept. I said fine and he gave me a strange look and said "Really? The trap rattling around upstairs from 2:00 AM to around 4:00 didn't disturb you?"

Uh...nope. Remember, I slept through a fire alarm at Mardi Gras in New Orleans.

Dad WAS disturbed by the sound of the trap rattling around upstairs. He tried to ignore it and go back to sleep but when he couldn't, he got up, got dressed, went upstairs...and found himself face to face with a trapped raccoon. AGAIN. I'm calling this one "Bandit" because a) the adorable little mask around their eyes and b) I had a stuffed raccoon named Bandit as a child. Oh, and c) this one consumed a lot of the peanut butter without tripping the trap. Dad made a pretty serious tactical error...he'd placed a cardboard box filled with old home phones and cables atop the cage, and Bandit had chewed through a flap of the box and gotten some wires tangled in the cage. Dad had to take a moment to sort that out, which was challenging as Bandit was a little feistier than Rocky. Eventually the cage was wire free and Dad took the trap, and Bandit, outside and thought about going back to bed until morning. But then he remembered...we have a joke among multiple members of Dad's side of the family about the "<family surname> family luck", which is all BAD. With that kind of luck, Dad worried Bandit might escape and hie right on back to the attic, especially since it got down to 18° last night. So he set the cage in the back of his Kia Soul (which had sat out all night in the driveway), threw the blue tarp over the trap in a vain attempt to keep Bandit somewhat calm, or at least confused, and went to get in...and his door was nearly frozen shut. Then he noticed the thick layer of ice on the windshield. After trying, and failing, to chip any significant amount off, he came back inside, filled an empty container with room temperature water and went out and poured it over his windshield (how did I sleep through all of this???). Then he unstuck his wipers and set off for the same place we relocated Rocky to.

After a missed turn (plus one illegal right turn on red, which, forbidding a right turn on red is not a bad thing during rush hour at this particular light but is totally senseless at 4:00 AM, with nobody coming, and an agitated raccoon in the back of the car), Dad got to the lake...and nearly put his car IN the lake due to a slight misjudgment on where the boat ramp is (answer: RIGHT THERE). He got the car stopped, went around to the back, opened the hatch...Bandit had grabbed paws-full of tarp and pulled them into the cage. Handsy little dude. So Dad had to pull the tarp out of the cage and toss it aside. He then took the trap out, set it close to, but not on, the ground, tilted it...and Bandit ran to the back of the cage and clung to the wire with all his (or her) little might, like some kind of tiny, furry Spiderman. Spider Raccoon. It took a few gentle shakes before Bandit realized his freedom and bolted out of the trap and into the woods.

And then Dad realized he was almost out of gas and had to drive around a bit to find a station open at (now) 4:30 AM. The joys of (semi) rural living...

Dad did manage to get a little more sleep upon returning around 5:00 AM (THAT I heard). And he set the trap back up in the crawlspace and put down more peanut butter. I did a quick Google and found out raccoons, especially young males, will sometimes "nest" together during the winter, in groups of 2-5. I'm really hoping Rocky and Bandit were just a couple of loners who found each other because I'm not sure how much more I, or DAD, can take of the Great Raccoon Hunt of 2026.

And I'm praying neither Rocky nor Bandit were new mommies...