Night Bandits

Tonight I can't upload a photo because I didn't take a picture. I couldn't. I locked myself out of the house even though the little voice in my head was screaming "put your keys in your pocket!"

I was watching the BBC news reports about the foiled terror plot. It was just about midnight and the cats were sleeping on the back of the sofa like bookends. I heard a crash that seemed to come from outside. Cats are great at times like this because they tend to look directly at where the sound comes from. Well both of them were looking at the front door, wide-eyed and sort of frozen in time. I thought it was a broken window so I headed outside to the courtyard to see what it was.

On the way out I thought I'd adjusted the lock so I could get back in. That's when the voice in my head told me to get my keys in kind of a "don't say I didn't tell you" tone of, uh, imagined voice. But I didn't know yet that the door locked behind me.

I headed out into the courtyard we share with two other neighbors and the first thing that caught my eye, expecting to see burglars or a broken window, was the shadows of several small creatures coming down the stairway across the way. They were the cutest raccoons you ever saw and the littlest ones weren't much bigger than my cats.

They walked across the path and went about 5 feet up a tree, stopped and looked at me. They were only a few feet away and I could hear them breathing. So I started talking to them like they were my pets. "You're bad little boys aren't you! Yes you are! What did you break you naughty, naughty critters?" There were plants, soil, broken things and a basket all down the stairway and a basket that had probably bounced several times before landing near the mailboxes.

These raccoons stole my heart. They were adorable and probably quite tame. And they just stayed there in the bottom branches of the tree saying "take our picture!" But when I hurried to get my camera, that's when I realized I was locked out. My neighbor had heard the clatter and had now come outside to see what was the matter. I was ringing the doorbell repeatedly trying to wake Brad up, to no avail. Eventually he woke up and came downstairs to let me in, looking really scary, and didn't bother to ask what the "situation" was outside that got me locked out in the first place. He DID notice that there were 8 phone messages and said "who's been calling?" Uh, that would have to be me, using the neighbors cell phone trying to wake the dead.

Tomorrow he'll wonder who called his cell phone about ten times at midnight.