|
No Worries-It's Just Mehodical Madness Hey! What's that Thing Doing the Backstroke in my Toilet? Ummm. . .Honey, The Clog has Eyes And This Little Piggy Loves Television The Serious Business of Writing Blogs Where do you Load the Bullets in the Gun?
|
January 5, 2007 No Worries--It’s Just Methodical Madness Most of us assume that madness is a severe mental disorder stemming from a form of mental illness. I have a different theory, confirmed by the following quote: He may be mad, but there's method in his madness. There nearly always is method in madness. It's what drives men mad, being methodical. - GK Chesterton The word methodical is the key to my theory. And my theory can be summed up in three words. Common Gateway Interface. No, this isn’t some new form of space travel, where people’s molecules are juggled while they stand in some transfer chamber where they’re turned into little white dots that disappear only to appear again in a whole different place. It’s a real term and is usually represented by the letters, CGI. If you’ve done any reading about websites and website design, you’ve probably seen these letters. And, if you’re like me, you’ve ignored them, figuring as long as you can access the internet and everything works fine, than what you don’t know won’t hurt you. I’ll admit, at least in this case, that’s true. Not knowing what CGI stands for, or what it really means, won’t hurt you. Furthermore, I think that trying to figure out what it is and how to do something with it can hurt. You see, CGI is what started my madness this week. It could have appropriately been called, Candice Going Insane. Chances are you’ve used the technology whenever you’ve filled out an online form. Common Gateway Interface (CGI) is a script written by computer nerds—something beyond your basic HTML, the programming language used to build websites. CGI is what allows us to fill in information on a website and send if off to a place (far, far away) where it bounces back and lands in an form that can be retrieved by the person who wants the information. Like emails. And this is where the madness starts. See, anything to do with computers and programming is methodical. I would go so far as to say that it’s unforgiving and rigid. If you don’t get everything JUST RIGHT, than whatever you’re trying to do doesn’t work. Not like cooking, where you can toss in something extra because it sounds good. Or like writing, where you can fiddle around with the words and change them until they suit you. Nope. Programming is black or white. Right or wrong. No middle ground. It’s like living with the worst perfectionist in the world. So, I guess you want to know why this was an issue for me, and I’m sure you know me well enough to know that I’m going to tell you. My descent into into CGI madness began when I decided that the Keep Me In Suspense website (KMIS is an organization I belong to that promotes inspirational mystery and suspense) needed a contact form. A place where we could direct authors and readers who had questions for us. From the website design I’ve been doing, I knew I could easily create a form, but how could I get the information from that to a centralized email address where I could access it? Thunk, thunk, thunk. . .That was the sound of my head banging on my desk. I HAD NO IDEA!! So, what is a person to do? If all else fails, read a book. And that’s what I did. The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Creating a Web Page and Blog, by Paul McFedries. That’s where I learned about CGI script. And where I found out that I couldn’t possibly do it myself. Unless you're a geeky computer nerd, you have to put instructions in your HTML code with instructions to access someone’s already written CGI code. I’m still relatively clueless about how it all really works, but got the access I needed through Paul McFedries, who provides it to his readers. I did what he said and added his HTML to our website, directing things his way. And, WOW! It worked. Unfortunately, I’m also still insane. But, like the quote said, there is method in my madness. Because I’m still working on websites.
January 7, 2007 If you read my previous blog entry, you’ll remember that I was whining about how I didn’t understand CGI. How it stood for Candice Going Insane. Then, I admitted that it really meant Common Gateway Interface, or CGI.Okay, well, I thought CGI was a hard concept to grasp. Not hardly. At least compared to this little gem I read in a science article called, The universe gives up its deepest secret.You wanna know what the big secret is? Sure you do. And I’m going to tell you. It’s the invisible material that makes up most of the cosmos. Something called, Dark Matter.Oh, my. That sounds Star Trek-ish to me. And it is. According to this article, the universe is held together by a filament thing, sort of like a web that acts like scaffolding or a skeleton. And the people who name scientific discoveries like this decided it should be called Dark Matter.I’ve often wondered who gets to decide what things are called in the universe. Is it a committee? Something like, You Find ’Em, We Name ’Em? And who makes the final decision? Is it a vote?Anyway, one scientist said, "Dark matter is a mysterious and invisible form of matter, about which we know very little, yet it dominates the mass of the universe." I'm sure you're asking (and rightly so), just how did scientists see something that can’t be seen? I'll tell you. By using something called gravitational lensing, first predicted by (who else?) Albert Einstein. Since this takes someone like Einstein to predict, I’m not even going to try to explain it. Especially since I’m not sure I understand. Suffice it to say, it has to do with light bent by gravity that travels a long, long way.So, the next thing these very smart people want to figure out is what makes up the Dark Matter. They think maybe mysterious sub-atomic particles. And those particles are difficult to detect because they’re mysterious. Okay, seriously, they can’t be detected easily because they don’t interact with ordinary matter. That makes them hard to identify with instruments. I’m not sure I understand that, either. Like, how does ordinary matter interact? Does it socialize?By now, you probably know me well enough to understand why I’m not a physicist. I have smarts, but not that kind, and articles like this make my mind tilt. However, despite my lack of comprehension of Dark Matter, at least about the scientific minutiae, I have a theory. A very simple one. Whatever Dark Matter is, God put it there to hold everything in place. And I think it’s really, really cool that the more scientists explore and discover, the more awesome the universe appears, and the more, in my mind, we prove that things just didn’t happen, they were created.Hey, if you want to check out the article, go here: http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_technology/article2134891.ece
January 10, 2007 Hey! What's That Thing Doing the Backstroke in My Toilet? Here’s an interesting tidbit that will make you feel all comfy cozy during your next middle-of-the-night trip to the bathroom. In a Southwestern town (next to a major university), small white rats have been swimming up through sewer pipes and into people’s toilets. Yes, this is a true story. It came from an AP wire news article. Many people blame the university because these are the kinds of rats that researchers use in labs and, coincidentally, the university has labs, researchers, and rats. University spokespeople deny emphatically that the toilet rats are their rats, going into great detail to explain exactly how they get rid of their excess or otherwise no longer needed rats. (It involves killing and plastic bio-waste bags and cremation.) The university powers-that-be say they want to emphasize it's not them because they don’t want the toilet swimming white rats rumor to spread until it's some urban legend. I’m certainly doing my part to help. Okay, so here are some of the problems. No one knows where the rats are coming from. No one knows why the rats are only in a small part of town. No one knows why they only show up at certain times of year. I think maybe it’s a yearly mating ritual, and the loser has to swim for his life. Or else they're running from a yearly plastic bio-waste bag party. A spokesman from the county’s wastewater management department says, “Making it from the sewer up the lines into someone's toilet is a difficult trip.” I guess so. If the water is running, the rats have to hold their breath and swim hard. That’s upstream through lots of. . .well, you know. Furthermore, the spokesman says, “If the rat makes it through your [house’s sewer connection pipe], that's a determined rat.” That’s what we all want in our toilets. Determined rats. So, the local health department is warning people not to handle or touch the toilet rats. Besides the fact that the warning contains redundancies, in as much as handling and touching are pretty much the same thing, I'm amazed the health department even has to say anything. At the risk of offending someone stupid, I think any adult dumb enough to stick their hand in the toilet to handle or touch a swimming rat that's come up sewer pipes from who knows where, is a couple sheets short of toilet paper roll. The chances are, if a rat has just done all that swimming, he's not going to be real friendly. Especially if he just escaped some human holding a plastic bio-waste bag. Or he lost his best girl. However, the health department is quick to assure everyone that the likelihood of the toilet rats having rabies or the plague (often associated with rats) is minimal. So, hey! If someone does handle or touch a swimming toilet rat, they’ll probably be okay. I have two other observations. First, the rats can crawl out of the toilets. One lady caught her toilet rat by putting a sticky trap on the bathroom floor and shutting the bathroom door. We hope she had more than one bathroom. And, yes, she caught the rat. The second thing is, nobody said anything in the article about the likelihood of a doggy paddling toilet rat nipping at the hinter-parts of the unsuspecting while they sit on the throne. That leaves room for speculation. Of what, I'm not sure. Here’s my final question. How many times do you turn on the light and look into the toilet before you use it in the dark? Of course, now that I’ve scared everyone into turning on bright lights in the bathroom and scanning the inside of the bowl before they go in the middle of the night, or, perhaps, avoiding the nighttime bathroom visits altogether, I can brag that I’m safe. I have a septic tank. (P. S. It could be worse. The rats could be the kind the Feds are catching on Florida’s Grassy Key Island. Three-pound, thirty-five-inch-long, Gambian rats, imported as pets from Africa. No toilet swimming, plague, or rabies worries with these big guys. Nope. If you handle or touch one of these charmers, you might get the monkeypox. January 14, 2007 Ummm. . .Honey, the Clog has Eyes This blog article is dedicated to Donna S. who kindly wrote me a response to my last blog article about swimming toilet rats. I just want to encourage her not to worry about rats clogging her toilet. I think she has a septic tank, and her problem is something different. Now, before I explain that, I must confess that I’ve had my comeuppance, and I’m sure my readers will appreciate the irony. Comeuppances, by the way, are good for developing humility. They also give me plenty of fodder for my blog articles, especially since I’m my favorite target for sarcastic barbs. You’ll remember that in last Wednesday's blog, I went on and on and on about the white rats that were appearing in people’s toilets via the public sewer system in a town in the Southwest. I brought up the question, so what happens if you sit on the toilet in the dark and there’s a rat doggy paddling in there? I didn’t have an answer and left it to my readers’ imaginations. However, I’m sure I’ve made a number of people who use the public sewer system think twice before they go to the bathroom at night. After I finished scaring everyone, I gleefully bragged that I didn’t have to worry. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, nah. I have a septic tank. Okay, well, I did mention the monsters in my septic tank, based on my August series about clogs, but that was just an imaginary thing that I made up when I facetiously twisted an evening spent with Brad unclogging our septic pipes. I was due a comeuppance. I deserve it. Here it is. As I was searching the internet for interesting topics to use as inspiration for future blogs, I happened upon another article about toilets. This one involved a snake. A python. I know your mind is already racing, and you’re probably way ahead of me, but I’m depending on the fact that you’re committed to reading further just to see if you’re right. Here it goes. An Australian woman called a plumber because her toilet was clogged. I’m pretty sure the plumber she called began his day like any other day, thinking, I’m a plumber. La, la, loo. Clogged toilets, pipes, and icky poo. Well, he was in for a surprise. The clog he was called to fix wasn’t the usual. . .er. . .toilet clog. I would have loved to have been in the bathroom when the plumber discovered the problem. Of course, the article doesn’t go into his reaction, but he immediately called the folks who are in charge of wild animal control in Australia. I wish that call had been recorded, but we only have the following quote from the wildlife officer, which I imagine downplays everything. According to the officer, “[the] plumber who was fixing the blocked toilet discovered [the snake] curled in the pipes.” When the wildlife officer arrived on the scene in the bathroom, he found “. . .a large python head peering out of the toilet bowl.'' Forget swimming toilet rats. In my book, they are nothing compared to python heads peering over the rim. The wildlife officer tried to pull the snake from the toilet, but couldn’t because the snake “had grown too big to be pulled straight out of the toilet.” That’s a big snake. And guess where he was living? THE BATHROOM OWNER’S SEPTIC TANK! Yep. This person didn’t have little ole white rats coming from public sewage. She had a resident septic tank snake. But, unlike the rats, it couldn’t crawl out of the toilet. It was too chubby. Now here’s where I get my comeuppance. The wildlife officer goes on to say, “The mostly nocturnal Carpet Python had probably taken up temporary residence in the septic tank because it was a good place to hide during the day and hunt for frogs.” You get it? Nocturnal? This snake is active in the dark. Like bathrooms at night. The wildlife officer concludes, “The tank was obviously a great home, because the snake was so fat and healthy it was difficult to retrieve.” My fantasy-septic-tank-monster pales in light of a real snake. I don’t care if he can’t crawl out; he still peers over the rim. All right. I admit it. I deserve this for making my dear, public-sewer-using-readers scared off their toilets. Unfortunately, now I’ve made the other half of my readers, the septic tank owners, as well as me, just a little nervous about those midnight forays into a darkened bathroom. Sorry, Donna.
January 17, 2007 And This Little Piggy Loved Television
I’ve given this fairy tale quite a bit of thought, and I tried to figure out if it’s a morality tale with a message for children. My conclusion? If there are any deep messages, they’re buried too deep for me. In fact, rereading the story as an adult, I’ve decided I have a few issues with the content. First, the fairy tale is misnamed. The little pigs’ mother kicked them out of her house because they were too big. I guess they were eating her out of house and home. But, why, then, is the story called The Three Little Pigs? How can they be little and big at the same time? Second, if anything, the story could be a warning to mothers. Teach your children well. The piggy mother in this story warns her fat little children to avoid the Big Bad Wolf, but she doesn’t teach them about building houses or the right construction materials to use. Bad mother. Third? Really, after rereading the whole thing online (complete with pictures), I’ve decided that it’s a pretty gruesome tale. Two of the three pigs died. And, at the end, the wolf was boiled to death. However, today I have a different pig tale for you. This one is still about three pigs, but they were real. I got this story from an Associated Press article. It seems some guy in Serbia was in the habit of leaving the door to his house open. I guess there’s not a lot of crime in his neighborhood. So, he goes out for while to do who knows what, leaving his door open. I don’t mean, not locked. I mean, open. While he was gone, his three pigs broke out of their pen, walked into the living room, and knocked over the television. The television tube burst, starting a fire that spread throughout the whole house. No people died, but the pigs perished. (I guess their mother never taught them it was impolite to bust into someone’s house and run amuck.) The amazing thing is that this story has more lessons than the Three Little Pigs. The most important one? Don’t leave your door open so the pigs can get in. The second most important one? Make sure your pig pen fence is secure. What have I learned from all this? Besides the fact that I think I’ll buy my pork at the grocery store, I’ve also concluded that sometimes people are kind of stupid. (I’ve reached that conclusion before.) Stupid like the man in another article I found. He set his home ablaze while he was trying to destroy a bee’s nest on the outside of his house. Seems he mixed a product called Real Kill Indoor Fogger with WD-40, and it became a "flame-thrower." His last name was Piggot.
January 21, 2007 The Serious Business of Writing Silly Blogs I am digressing today from my usual frivolity in order to blog about the serious business of blogging. I promise things will return to normal on Wednesday. Okay, so if you’re a regular reader of my blog, you’ll know that I mostly write off-the-wall, silly stuff. And if someone were to ask you what you thought my goal was for my blog, you might be hard-pressed to answer. Umm, she needs an outlet for her insane thoughts? Oh, wait! Her blogs are a project they’ve given her as therapy at the sanitarium. Writing tongue-in-cheek blog articles are better than a lobotomy. Ha! Read on. You’ll understand better why I do what I do. The first thing you need to know is that I’m a person who is capable of serious thought. Oh, yes. Deep thought, even. I really do think about things more important than swimming toilet rats and the Three Little Pigs. One of the things I’m very serious about is my writing career. That’s why I have this website. And that’s why I blog. But, before I embarked upon blog writing I had to know why I was going to do it. First, I read books about the topic. I am the research queen. I read books about everything I do. And for the blogs, I also read what other writers had to say. I explored my options. I came to the conclusion that blogging is serious business. The number one warning I read, and something that I would love to stuff into other blogger’s heads, is that blogging can be dangerous. Anyone with a blog should seriously consider what they’re posting before they push that publish button. Ranting and raving might work for you if controversy is the focus of your job and your message, like people whose careers are built upon their political leanings. (Ann Coulter, for example.) However, for a fiction author, whose goal it is to sell books, cutting loose about controversial personal opinions and topics is not wise. The person you offend today just might be someone you need tomorrow. Like an editor. Remember that words live in peoples’ heads long after the computer screen goes black. So, with that warning, I’ll get down to the three things I believe require consideration before a person decides to have a blog. The first is simply a basic knowledge of blog-dom. What blog platform will you use? And where will you keep your blog? Your website? Second, think about what a blog requires. It can’t be a spur of the moment decision, slapped together, with no thought about its purpose or the commitment involved. Blogs take serious commitment. The first is a commitment to post on a regular basis. If you don’t, people will stop visiting. That’s a simple fact of life. It would be like someone inviting you to their house, then you show up at their door only to discover they aren’t home. If that happened several times, you’d stop going. Blogs take time. Some people might be surprised to discover that on some weeks, I spend up to three or four hours, maybe more, writing my two weekly blog articles, between research, preparation, writing, and editing the articles. WHAT? You probably just exclaimed. Just to write about septic tank monsters and moments of insanity? Yep. Granted, the research I do is probably something I would do anyway. I’m always on the look out for weird and goofy facts. But my silly blog articles are real work. Silliness has to flow well and be thoroughly edited, just as much as serious articles have to be. As for purpose, a blog needs a reason to be. A theme, if you will. Just having a blog because you want one—because it’s cool—because everyone does it, especially authors—is not a good reason or a good purpose for a blog. Most blogs that develop an audience of readers have a reason for being. For instance, the purpose for the Keep Me In Suspense blog is to aid suspense and mystery writers. That’s our focus, and our articles are geared toward that. When someone visits our blog, they know what they’re going to find. Lisa Harris has a blog called, Heart of Africa. She’s a missionary in Africa, as well as an award-winning author. On her blog, you’ll find really cool tidbits about her life there. Cara Putnam is a lawyer and an author. Her blog, The Law, Books, and Life, is perfectly themed for her. The editors at my publisher have a blog called, The Edit Cafe. How perfect is that? So, what about my blog? Does all that silliness have a reason for being? A purpose? You bet it does. When I began planning my blog, I visited the blogs of every author and editor I could find. I noted what the trends were, what people were doing, and what blogs kept my interest—and why. Then I examined me. At what did I excel? What did I have to offer people that wasn’t already being done? What experiences or talents did I have that would be a solid foundation on which to base my blog? Sure, I could write about police procedure, but I was saving that for Keep Me In Suspense. So, I asked myself what I love to give to people in real life. That’s when I had an epiphany. I love to make people smile. I firmly believe that laughter IS a gift from God. And there you have it. My purpose--laughter. If I’ve done that, than I’ve accomplished what I set out to do. So, that is my serious digression from my usual bloggish silliness and OH, WAIT!. . . . . I must stop writing now. My nurse has arrived and informed me that my writing hour is up. My next scheduled sanitarium activity is making wallets from duct tape. I’m really, really excited about that. They’ll make great Christmas gifts. Ha Ha Ha!
January 24, 2007 Duct Tape Wallets and Toothbrush Bracelets In my last blog article, I mentioned making duct tape wallets for Christmas presents as a project at the sanitarium. Contrary to what some people might believe (or perhaps what people think I need) the sanitarium part of that blog was just a joke. However, the duct tape wallet was not. And you thought I was making that up, didn’t you? Seriously. I’ve found instructions about how to make a duct tape wallet, and I will give you the URL at the end of this blog article and hope that you don’t skip over everything else I have to say in your eagerness to learn this valuable skill. Because, as we all know, everything I have to say is of the utmost importance. I know the number one burning question you have is why would anyone want to make a duct tape wallet? Excellent question. I have several excellent answers for you. First, it’s cheaper and easier than making one from leather. Second, you can have a new wallet every week. Every day, if you’d like. Think of the comments you’ll get from people. Third, in some circles, I imagine a guy carrying a duct tape wallet would be the envy of his buddies. And remember, some tapes come in other colors. Not just the silver. (I’m not sure if they are still considered duct tape or not, but the tapes would work.) So, you could make a collection of wallets in different colors. WARNING: making duct tape wallets requires the use of a sharp implement and a ruler, so, really, it’s not a good project for the sanitarium. But, I don’t want to make a duct tape wallet, you say. That’s tacky! Okay, that’s fine. If a duct tape wallet doesn’t float your boat, you could always make a toothbrush bracelet. Sure. I mean, what else can you do with used toothbrushes beside using them to clean the cracks in grout? Or cleaning around bathroom fixtures? This is the perfect project for the woman who loves bangles. Think of the variety of colors toothbrushes come in. You could make one for each outfit. And, even better, this is the consummate statement for people who recycle. WARNING: making toothbrush bracelets requires the use of pliers and boiling water. Again, not a good sanitarium project. The website on which I found these projects has plenty of other activities that people spent good time thinking up. Check it out. http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Duct-Tape-Wallet http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Toothbrush-Bracelet By the way, this blog article is dedicated to my sister, who loves purses, wallets, and jewelry; my mother, who loves jewelry; and my daughter, who loves it all. You go, girls. Have fun!
January 27, 2007 Where Do You Load the Bullets in the Gun? That was the insane message I left with one of my husband’s co-workers one afternoon (years ago) when we lived in the woods, on the side of a mountain, in Virginia, and my husband was working three hours away in D.C. It all started because my daughter had been outside, playing in a tiny stream of water with a raccoon in her lap. (In case you aren’t familiar with my daughter’s propensity for messing with wild animals, you can refer back to my June 18th Blog Article called, Who, Who, Who Saves the Owls.) Okay, this probably goes without saying, but a wild raccoon that approaches people like that, in the middle of the day and sits in their laps, is usually bad news. No, my daughter didn’t get bitten, but she did have open cuts on her hands while she handled the raccoon, and I had no guarantee that the raccoon’s saliva hadn’t somehow made it into her bloodstream. That was bad. When I called her inside, the raccoon stayed right where she left it, playing in the water. I called the health department. They wanted me to kill the raccoon and bring it in for rabies testing. Although I knew how to load my pistol and the shotgun, I didn’t remember how to load the twenty-two, which is what I wanted to use to kill the animal. And that's when I called Brad. Things were getting really bad. I was a wreck. Well, Brad’s co-worker couldn’t find Brad for me, so I did the next best thing. I used my pistol. I got the raccoon with my first shot, but I got it in the head. The important thing to understand here is that rabies testing in animals is done on brain tissue. I had just about obliterated all of that with my one shot to the raccoon's head. Things were going from bad, bad, bad to worse. In the meantime, Brad had called me back after his co-worker hunted him down and said, “Um, Brad. You really should call your wife. Something to do with bullets and guns.” By the time he called me, Elizabeth and I were about to head out to the Health Department with a dead raccoon in a bag in my trunk. Poor Brad. Being that far away, there was nothing he could do to help me. (And, if you’re horrified that I even had a gun and knew how to use it, you need to understand that I was raised in the country. Hunting and skeet shooting were a pretty normal part of life.) So, the next thing we had to do is arrange for poor Elizabeth to get rabies shots. Yep. In cases like that, the shots have to be started immediately, no matter what. Just in case. Until the raccoon brain is tested, which, you remember, they weren’t sure they’d be able to test, due to me blowing away most of the brain tissue. I won't spend a lot of time on all of the trauma that happened between her initial contact with the raccoon and the end of the series of events, mostly because I can't remember, and that is probably due to what amounts to psychic hemorrhaging from stress. I do know that Elizabeth had the first in the rabies shot series. (Yes, they are painful.) Then, fortunately, there was just enough brain tissue to test, which turned out negative for rabies. Of course, I'm guilty of killing an innocent raccoon. In case you wondered, yes, that bothered me. Here is my conclusion. My daughter deserves the credit for my present lack of sanity, of which you catch glimpses every week in my blog articles. You see, raising a child who does things like playing with raccoons or hugging owls causes motherhood-brain-damage (MBD), a form of insanity. That damage is as a result of the erosion of lucid thought brought on by the constant bombardment of stressful events. MBD insanity is a self-protection mechanism that gradually numbs the brain to the consequences of further onslaught. And that explains why I am the way I am, and why I write what I write, and why I. . . . . .what was I saying? Were you asking me something? Did someone say it's time to make duct tape wallets? January 31, 2007 In my last blog article, I told you about a day in my daughter’s life that will live in infamy. Well, one of several days in her life that will live in infamy. Okay, one of many days in her life that will live in infamy. . .anyway, I told you about the time I walked outside and found her sitting next to the water, holding a raccoon in her lap. Despite the trauma of that day, and the damage to my psyche (she does not remember much about it), I realize now that we got off easy. We weren’t dealing with psycho killer raccoons like some unlucky people. This is a real story from an August, 2006, Associated Press article. It seems that in Olympia, Washington, a pack of raccoons was terrorizing everyone. Killing cats, and attacking dogs and people. One woman now carries an iron pipe with her when she goes outside, because a pack of raccoons attacked her two cats, and when she was trying to rescue them, she got bitten. One might ask what she was thinking, jumping in the middle of a pack of raccoons to rescue her cats, but, hey, I can’t say anything critical. After all, my daughter held a raccoon in her lap, and, apparently, I hadn’t taught her any better. The residents got together and hired a nuisance wildlife control operator to set traps, but in six weeks, he caught only one raccoon. He told everyone that the raccoons teach their young -- and each other -- to avoid traps. He goes on to say that he’s seen packs of raccoons this big before, but none so into killing. "They are in command up there,'' he said. Great! I’m thinking. A big pack of raccoons, really into killing, are in command. Not only that, but they teach each other to avoid traps. What’s next? In a sci-fi-ish way, this is quite fascinating and a little scary. This threat isn’t just on the West Coast. I found another Associated Press report from January, 2007, in which a Connecticut woman was on her porch, and a raccoon came up behind her and latched onto her leg. “It was a huge raccoon who meant business,'' she said. “It was very angry and growling and wouldn't let go of my leg.'' She beat the raccoon with a chair. The animal was killed and tested positive for rabies. That was the first attack on a human, but four dogs were attacked, also. Health officials say there isn't a pandemic of rabies. Instead, the warm weather has caused wild and domesticated animals to interact more. Huh? I had to read that statement a couple of times. This attack occurred in January and it was warmer than normal. However, warm weather happens every summer, too. The logical conclusion to this statement would be that every summer, raccoons attack domesticated animals. That might be the case (I haven’t studied raccoons), but that doesn’t explain the attack on the woman or the West Coast psycho killer raccoons traveling in packs with the intent to kill. Because, as far as I know, those things haven’t occurred with regularity every summer. I’m not sure what to think. I do know that the last time I saw a raccoon around here, it scared me. It was a big one, walking in sort of a weird way across the back of our yard, near the property line, in the middle of the day. Fortunately, my daughter wasn’t around, and I didn’t end up having to shoot it. The creature disappeared up a tree, and I haven’t seen it since. For all I know, it’s still up there, frothing at the mouth and growling, ready to drop on my head if I stand under the tree and look up. After all, the weather has been warmer than normal. Guess I’d better walk around with a chair or an iron pipe. Hey, I’ve reported on swimming toilet rats, septic pythons, and psycho killer raccoons. What’s next?
|
