Nadine L. Meade's Funny Stories Page

House Guest

Rural Oklahoma, 4 1/2 miles from the town of Seminole, we live in a metal building which we refer to as a barn. My husband, who’s nickname is Spider, and I are in the process of building this house/barn combination. The very comfortable living area is two story, with a deck on the second floor which extends around the end of the barn where the living quarters are.

Living with us are a Schnauzer named Kissie, and a cat named So Far So Good, we call her So. To make things convenient for Kissie and So we have a dog door through which they can come and go onto the deck as they wish.

So and Kissie aren’t exactly best of friends, they tolerate each other for a while and then their relationship erupts into unfriendly swatting and snapping spats. This usually happens after one of them jumps into a chair for a nap, only to find they’ve accidentally landed on their unhappy housemate. Their relationship has us accustomed to hearing their occasional spats, especially since Kissie normally sleeps on the bed with us and So frequently sleeps under the bed.

June 25, 2006 at 1 AM our family awakened to Kissie jumping at the foot of the bed growling. This isn’t uncommon, so I slept through it, and Spider told her to leave So alone. Spider then went into the bathroom for a moment.

As I lay sleeping, something, which I thought was the dog, jumped over me and crossed the bed. Kissie doesn’t normally jump on us, and it felt kind of funny as she went over, but I probably would not have remembered much about the incident if not for what followed.

While Spider sat in the dark he thought the cat came and turned around by his leg wanting a pet, which is a very common occurrence. He said, "It’s okay So, that dog isn’t going to get you", and reached down and gave her a pet. One stroke was all it took and he said in a nice clear, awake voice, "We have a raccoon in the house!"

The dog had jumped off of the bed and somehow herded the raccoon into the bedroom with us. It was the raccoon that had jumped over me on the bed, not the dog! As it left the bathroom, after the reassuring pet from Spider, it went around the end of the bed and through the house. Bypassing the dog door through which it had entered the house, it went to our big windows, climbed up on an end table which it managed to not turn over or knock anything off of, and was trying to get out of the window. Spider opened the front door and we herded it out. The door was swinging shut as the raccoon went toward it, and luckily it managed to escape before the door closed to much for it to exit.

Kissie and I went right back to sleep, Spider laid awake for a little while chuckling to himself about the incident. This morning we discussed the possibility of putting a closeable door on the dog door, but haven’t decided for sure it is necessary. Perhaps if it had been a skunk he had petted we’d be more convinced?

June 25, 2006 Nadine