"It sounds like something...evil..."

This is another story not about growing up in the ghetto, but the fact that we never grew out of it.

The summer after I graduated high school I spent in Texas working for Andy, and in general causing problems. It was one of the best summers of my life.

One day Natalie and Alison were over and we were watching Charlotte, long gone to bed, chatting. That's when we heard the chirping. I'd been hearing it all week, coming from the walls.

"It sounds like something...evil..." Natalie said, and for some reason that line became hilarious. We tried to track down the source of the chirping, but it seemed to be coming from the walls, and moving. A bird perhaps? Muhahaha.

The next day on the can I hear the chirping crazy loud in the wall right next to me, not near the living room where we heard it before and nowhere near the outside. Andy and I decided to take matters into our own hands and cut a hole in the drywall to remove....wait for it...a baby raccoon!

Never before have I been privileged to care for a cuter secret pet. I bottle fed the little guy myself up in my room hoping Jen wouldn't discover our machinations. My favorite part of the whole affair was actually when Jen did find out. 8 months pregnant at the time with Claire, Jen had little patience for us using her baby's bottle to clandestinely keep a varmit in the house: Andy and I got quite the talking to. The thing needed to go, and quicklike. We just set him outside and in less than a minute the momma raccoon was there and scooped him away like a cat. It was awesome.

P.S. To get a more hilarious version of this story, ask Jen about when we ripped a hole in her bathroom to catch a baby raccoon.