Raccoon - 5, Parents - 1

i went home to visit the parentals at the end of july. they picked me up in pittsburgh and we headed back to the house. as i carried in my stuff, i noticed a long metal cage sitting on the deck. "what's that for?" i asked. "the raccoon," my mother answered. "we have a raccoon?" "not on purpose." apparently the raccoon had been tearing up the yard and eating the votive candles out of mom's terra cotta luminaries. "candles?" "yes, he very carefully pulls them up out of the holders and i guess he thinks they might be food. he munches around the outside, realizes he can't eat it, and moves on." all this, and he's not so much as tipped over the breakable holders. the yard, however, is looking pretty rough, so my parents decided to trap him and take him up to cooper's rock (a local state park) and let him go up there.

they had tried to catch him the night before i arrived using hamburger as bait, but to no avail. in the morning, the hamburger was gone, and the trap was still set - and almost caught the cat, who is clearly not as clever as the raccoon. according to my uncle (who lent them the trap - why he had a raccoon trap, i'm sure i don't know), the best bait is sardines. um, ok. so that night, dad set the trap. in the morning the cage held... nothing. the sardines were gone, and this time the trap was closed, as if the raccoon wanted to show us that either a) he knew how this trick worked, or b) he was the houdini of the nocturnal world. raccoon 2, parents 0.

they tried again, this time with dad fashioning a cup to hold the sardines, which would be affixed to the cage. theoretically, the raccoon would have to climb into the trap in order to get the food. this time, the cup was intact and unmoved, the trap was opened, and the sardines were gone. raccoon 3, parents 0.

on the fourth attempt - with more rigging and wiring of sardine holders - a raccoon was caught. unfortunately, it wasn't the one they were after. this was a baby raccoon, who was all kinds of scared to be stuck in the cage. he was too young to have learned the finesse of the older raccoon, who was still free. my parents, animal-lovers both even though they were tired of the raccoon shenanigans, tried to calm the poor baby before dad took him up to cooper's rock to find distant relatives. so technically, raccoon 4, parents 0; but since they did catch a raccoon (though it wasn't the raccoon), i'll give them raccoon 4, parents 1.

a few days after i returned to orlando, my mother called to tell me they had tried a new tactic. you guessed it: this time the cup and the sardines made it out of the cage, without the trap ever catching. raccoon 5, parents 1. and the battle continues...