Mr. Raccoon Gets a Tummy Ache

We enjoyed many camping trips in various state parks when our children were growing up. One of our favorite campgrounds was at McCormick's Creek State Park near Spencer, Indiana, about an hour's drive south of Indianapolis. This park has always been notorious for the "friendly" raccoons in the campground, and in fact they are one of the main attractions for many campers. We were always careful to never leave any food out, since raccoons would often fight fiercely over the smallest of scraps. Feeding them was against park rules. However if you know anything about raccoons, you know that they will go to great lengths to feed themselves. And pilfering people-food is one of their favorite creative pastimes.

On this particular trip, we were set up on a nicely wooded campsite on the edge of the campground. The site was shaded by several large trees. We slept in a cabin tent for 6, the kind with the support poles outside, curving up over the top. After the requisite number of bedtime stories and a few ghost stories, the kids settled into their sleeping bags and drifted off. The campground was quiet well before the noise curfew, and my husband and I were also soon asleep.

The next thing I knew, my husband was scolding and calling "Scat cat!" in a half-awake state. We had several cats at home, and they were sometimes inside, sometimes outside, according to feline whims. Of course, this was not a cat. I found a flashlight, and discovered a large raccoon inside the tent with us. He had unzipped the screen door of the tent, shuffled right in, and was helping himself to a bag of assorted wrapped hard candies he had found hidden in a corner of a suitcase.

Instantly we were awake, scooped the children to one side of the tent, and opened the screen door to shoo the offending critter back outside. He was happy right where he was with the sweet treats, but he finally grudgingly started for the door. Almost outside, he turned and went back to grab the bag of candy and carried it with him up the tree outside, huffing and annoyed and looking back at us, chattering as he went.

All the next day, candy wrappers came floating, one by one, down from the branches of that tree. Those little raccoon fingers were actually unwrapping each piece. As the kids picked up the wrappers, they sniffed each one and identified the flavors they were missing out on.

That night I found a diaper pin (anybody remember those?) and pinned the zipper pulls to the bottom of the tent. Mr. Raccoon did not descend, but we heard him rustle in the tree every now and then. We decided he must have had a tummy ache.