Creepy Like Unto a Clown

I have a fig tree in my back yard. I have long wanted the fig tree cut down to a much smaller size. This thing is out of control. And with this year's unseasonably wet spring season, there are about ten billion figs on my fig tree. That's about nine billion more than normal.

Normally birds eat up all of the figs and I never get any (which is fine by me because the only way I really like figs is in the newtons... and even then I like the raspberry flavored newtons. So figs are fairly useless to me all around.)

But the birds get an epic fail this season on their fig-eating-ability report card.

So now, with an abundance of pesky fruit in my overgrown tree, which I can reach out and grab from my bedroom window, a new fruit-predator has deigned to enter my backyard and partake of the fruitage.

Racoons.

Really.

I prefer the birds.

The racoons are loud, and disease-ridden (I'm convinced) and creepily cute with their flashy little eyes and paws and bushy tails.

And they make big noises while I'm lying in my bed, trying to fall asleep and they scurry all around my fig tree, breaking branches and chattering.

So I opened my window wide (not before taking a moment to wonder if they would come flying into my bedroom like furry ninjas) and yelled at them.


"HEY! You jerks!! Get outta my tree!"

And they turned their furry little masked faces and stared at me and shined their eyes like flashlights.

So I got out my headlamp and shined it at them.

And then I froze.

Because.

There.

Was.

An.

Albino Racoon.

For real.

And It was the creepiest of all creepy things creeping in my tree last night. I'm pretty sure.

And I yelled again and took pictures with my camera, the flash causing a mass-exodus from the fig tree of FIVE racoons (including whitey-ford, the albino racoon).

And they all ran into my tomato garden.

Fail.