I’ve been having way, way too much fun on Threads lately. It reminds me of what Twitter felt like a decade or more ago. Never mind that it’s owned by Meta. I’m choosing to ignore that for now.
For some reason I decided to spend way too much time time last Monday telling my “thriends” the story of why I hate raccoons so much and, much like those evil little mammals are wont to do, the Threads thread escaped containment.
I’ve probably told this story a hundred times before but I’ve never written it down. I figured it would be good to have it somewhere so I could just send it anyone who took issue with my feelings about raccoons, rather than having to tell the story again. But, because the Threads archives aren’t always easy to search, and because my complicated feelings about Meta could eventually lead to me closing my account someday, I wanted to put the story somewhere where it would be easy to find and hard for anyone (but me) to delete. I’m literally just copy-pasting from Threads below, and there are probably typos. Oops.
Every once in a while, I will make a remark about how I hate raccoons. And then I get a dogpile of: “but why do you hate raccoons? Raccoons are adorable/funny/smart/etc!”
I usually say it’s a long story, but I do have my reasons. But I saw some more pro-raccoon propaganda over the weekend and couldn’t let it stand. I figured it was time to speak my truth.
So, here, thriends, is the story.
I should begin by noting that my paternal grandmother was…interesting. (I could tell you more more but I use my real name on this account.) Suffice it to say that in grad school, I wrote an essay about some of her shenanigans and one of my classmates told me he didn’t believe it was a work of nonfiction, because no one person could be *that* extra.
ANYWAY, my grandmother loved animals. She had lots of animals. She thought everyone else should have lots of animals, too. Enter: the goldfish.
One day in, I think, February (it was cold), my youngest sister comes home from an outing with our grandmother, giggling uncontrollably and looking more than a little guilty. Finally, she tells us to go look outside in the fountain.
My parents’ house has a courtyard with a water feature between two built-in planters. It’s comprised of a Bacchus fountain face (turned off for the season) and a small basin that’s probably 2′ x 2′ x 5′ and contains a few aquatic plants.
So… after my sister tells us to, we all go outside and fuck if there aren’t are three or four goldfish swimming in the fountain.
My grandmother had taken my sister to PetSmart and my sister asked for a goldfish and because my grandmother was like, “Sure, everyone needs more pets,” she said yes without checking with my parents. And then they apparently decided together that it would be HILARIOUS if they bought more than one goldfish and released them all into the fountain.
After depositing the fish, my grandmother told my sister not to say anything and left. But of course, because my sister is maybe eight years old and has zero chill, she tells the story immediately.
Okay, so now we have fish. (I swear, the raccoon part is coming…)
My parents are, I’d say, moderately annoyed by the situation, but they’ve had to take care of other random animals in the past and they’re willing to roll with this for at least a little while.
Except remember how it’s February? It’s cold and it’s getting dark and these are the dial-up internet days so nobody is able to do a quick check on the spot as to what water temperatures goldfish can survive in. Rather than risk it, my dad spends the next hour fishing the goldfish out of the fountain so we can bring them inside. At one point he asks my sister if he got them all. She says she can’t remember how many there were. Dad keeps looking for fish until it gets dark.
The fish live in a tank on our kitchen counter for the rest of the season. At some point that winter we become aware of the fact that there’s some small eyelash-looking detritus floating in the water with them. At first we think it’s maybe fish poop.
Nope.
Fish babies.
They’re small and transparent and those things that look like eyelashes are the goldfish babies’ spines.
So now we have *two* generations of goldfish living in a tank on our kitchen counter.
A few of the babies, miraculously, survive water changes and “what the hell do we feed them” and goldfish parents who maybe-accidentally-but-maybe-on-purpose play Cronos and eat their own offspring.
And when it gets warm enough, my dad does whatever he has to do to make sure the water in the fountain is goldfish-friendly and we release the fish.
They thrive. We grow to love our little fountain friends.
t some point, my grandmother takes my sister to PetSmart again and this tine they come back with a tiny, beautiful little koi. She’s mostly white, with black and red marks and a tail that’s as long as her body. My sister has already named her “Sushi.”
She is too young to know what Chekov’s gun is, but she has now introduced the concept to the fountain and its occupants. Because remember—this is actually a thread about raccoons.
Sushi and the goldfish, which I am realizing now would make a great Siouxsie and the Banshees cover band name, coexist happily.
Maybe a little too happily.
There are more eyelashes floating in the water. The ones who make it are clearly goldfish-koi hybrids.
We’re up to maybe six or seven fish at this point. It’s getting a little crowded in there but everyone seems happy.
hat winter, we don’t bring the fish inside. Instead, every night, we bring out a few gallon-sized jugs filled with hot water and float them in the reservoir to keep the water from freezing.
All of the fish survive the season.
Fast-forward to one early one morning, spring 2001. The fish are all, miraculously, alive. I can’t remember how many fish are living in the fountain at this point. (I also don’t remember the year we got the first batch of fish so I’m not sure if this was year two or year three with them.)
Just know that these were not goldfish that you win at a carnival, keep for three days until they inevitably die, and then flush down the toilet. We’d had these fish for YEARS. They were our FRIENDS.
On that fateful morning, my sisters and I are getting ready for school. My dad walks out the front door to the courtyard, then comes back in quickly. I hear him call for my mom. “Keep the girls inside!” he yells. Then he goes back out to the courtyard.
Mom is, of course, worried that there’s a danger to her daughters out there. Crazed gunman? Zombies? Aliens? Oh hell no. So my mom, all 4’11” of her, follows my dad outside, ready to defend her family.
She has walked into a bloodbath.
To hear my parents tell it, there are fish parts everywhere. Blood and guts and spines that have been picked clean of all flesh. My dad finds Sushi’s whole damn tail. The rest of her, apparently, became what her name had fated her to be.
It’s pretty obvious what happened.
Sometime overnight, one or more raccoons let themselves into my parents’ courtyard, looked in the fountain reservoir, thought how nice it was of our family to leave them dinner, and had themselves a fish feast.
My dad starts cleaning up. My mom has to tell us what had happened. Needless to say, we don’t take it well.
Mom makes us leave the house through the garage so we can’t see the carnage.
By the time we get home, dad has cleaned up. It’s so sad walking past the fountain and not being greeted by our little fishy friends, who always greeted us after school, ready for their supper.
But wait! What’s this? Just behind one of the potted lilies in the reservoir, a flash of orange and white.
ONE OF THE FISH HAD SURVIVED.
Apparently he managed to get to a hiding place the raccoons couldn’t or didn’t try to reach.
We try to coax him out with food. No dice.
Thriends, when I tell you this fish was traumatized, please believe I am understating it. He watched the massacre of his entire family.
Survivor fish spends most of the rest of his life in his hiding place, only darting out quickly at feeding time.
Turns out Ted Lasso is wrong. Goldfish, in fact, have a pretty long memory.
I don’t remember how much longer survivor fish lives after this, but when I leave for college a year and a half later, he’s still there. I think at some point maybe more fish are acquired for the fountain to give survivor fish some friends, but I can’t remember.
So anyway, yeah. When I say I hate raccoons, I mean I HATE RACCOONS. We are 25 years into a blood feud.
Raccoons murdered my little fish friends. I think my grudge is more than justified.