Raccooooon!

So...

Today I'm coming home from a TA review for my finance final on Monday and I was really looking forward to getting in my room and relaxing. I get out of the car and walk toward the stairs when I see a raccoon foraging around the trash cans on the first floor near the stairs. I got a little nervous because bats and raccoons up here tend to have rabies. The on-campus channel used to run warnings about that kind of thing all the time. So I decided I would quickly walk past the raccoon and head upstairs. Well, that definitely didn't happen because before I moved two steps the raccoon walked up the steps ahead of me. It walked all the way up to the third floor! I had never seen a raccoon walk up stairs, let alone three flights. At this point I definitely wasn't going to go up the stairs. My apartment is on the third floor and I didn't want to be up there with the raccoon and either have it feel threatened and jump on me, or have it run in the door behind me. So I waited downstairs. And waited. And waited. I don't know what that raccoon was doing up there, but I still hadn't seen it come down the front or back stairs.

After a few minutes I saw it walk down the stairs and go back to the trash cans. I knew that this would be my chance to quickly get upstairs and into my apartment.

MISTAKE!!!

As I'm putting my key in the door thinking I'm safe I hear a noise that sounds like a cross between a hiss and a growl. I look down and see the raccoon standing right behind me! The stance it was in looked just like the raccon in the picture above. I yelled and jumped and was just plain scared. I tried to get away from it by walking down the back staircase. I didn't want to run so that I wouldn't agitate it, so I just tried to walk fast. But as I was going down the stairs I realized that this little beast was following me! So I quickly picked up the pace and went back to my car. I decided to drive over to Phase 1 where the office is and see if someone there could get someone to handle this raccoon. But, the office closes at 8pm and I got there at 8:05 and everyone was gone. I just stood over there for a while trying to figure out what to do because I did not want to go back to my apartment. When I called my dad he suggested I drive back to my building to see if I could still see the raccoon and see if there were other people going up and down the stairs.

So I drove back and sat in my car for a little bit. I saw someone run up to the second floor, so I figured that the raccoon was at least not on the first or second floor. But what if it was on the 3rd floor where my apartment is? I was still scared to take the chance. I called my one of my roommates who's in vet school to see if she could give me any advice, but she wasn't home. I looked in my trunk for something to use as protection, although I'd be too scared to swing anything at the raccoon for fear of retaliation.

Then I saw a guy come out of the apartment underneath mine to take out his trash. So I ran over to him and asked him to walk me up to my apartment. I'd never met him before, so I think his confused reaction was understandable. I explained the story about being followed by the raccoon, but he still looked kinda weirded out. Oh well, at least I didn't have to face the raccoon again.

My roommate called back a little later and I gave her the series of events. She said I needed to call animal control because it sounded like a rabid raccoon. Well that's just great! I called animal control to leave a message for them, but there was no option for that, so I'll have to call first thing in the morning. I'm too scared of the raccoon to leave my apartment until they come. On a side note, I was moving stuff around in my trunk while looking for a weapon and pulled out a 12-pack of Zephyrhills that I didn't even realize was in there. But I think I left it outside of my car in the parking lot when I ran after the guy to escort me.