Raccoons: In Your Wildest Dreams!

Don't Laugh.

I had a dream last night and I'm calling all interpreters to tell me what it means. No funny business—jokes, wisecracks, Freudian slips. If this has something to do with the stealth raid on the US dollar, you have my attention. But if you insist it's about male self-doubt, well.... I'll kick your butt, that's what!

Here goes: I'm in a house in everyone's hometown. It's dusk, autumn—meaning, it's dark outside and early. The neighborhood has a low covering of old trees, gnarly, sturdy oaks whose branches form a ceiling over the narrow street. I am home for some event—holiday, birthday, reunion, what have you. I haven't been home for some time, at least to see people outside the family. There are flashes, moments inside the event where I meet people I haven't seen in years. My personality is like the one you have at a work event: pretend friendly, not having a bad time but not having a genuinely good time. You know, making nice.

Then, I view the scene outside from several feet away, as the event in the house disbands. Along with other people outside, leaving other houses, everyone inside my house disbands and heads into the street. They all go to the right, up the street as if to some common destination. But I leave and go straight, along the cross street.

As always with dreams, pertinent questions are always left to waking hours. In this case, the question is why I go away from the event and the people I am visiting?


Next, I am in an unlit room, hunched on the floor. I am between the underside of a large table and a big piece of furniture against the wall. Suddenly, I am face to face with a creature I know to be a raccoon, by virtue of black accents on the tail. However, the face is of "Bill the weasel" from a Foghorn Leghorn cartoon. Incredibly, the animal's outstanding feature is its brilliant turquoise color. I notice this feature most, but there are no specific feelings.

The creature means no harm, but I become unnerved nevertheless. I am determined to defend myself, because I feel vulnerable in my position as "prey." The raccoon insists he is no danger: His voice is gravelly and slow, sort of.....uh, well—slow, bumbling, country guy-ish. But I grab the can of Lysol at my disposal and begin spraying the beast.



I am surprised at the ineffectiveness of my defense. I expected the shower of disinfectant would scare away the turquoise raccoon, but he stays his ground and howls in pain. His eyes won't close and the spray coats the bulging orbs with a waterfall of cell-killing anti-bacterial chemicals. The poor thing yells as I spray and spray and spray....

Question: Why, if I felt no overwhelming fear, did I attack the animal, even after it told me it was no threat, and its mien revealed a harmless, slow-witted hayseed?

The turquoise raccoon moved away to my left as I sprayed the can of Lysol on it. I sprayed madly, my safety at stake. I felt the imprint of the nozzle in my index finger and the dampness of the Lysol that drizzled on my hand. The animal slunk away—probably to die, thanks to me!—and I folded up against the wall, under a window, where the raccoon had stood my onslaught. I looked at the place where I hunched only moments before. I looked up and saw something that made my blood run cold.

There, above me, were about a dozen turquoise raccoons with faces set coldly in anger. They had seen the whole episode and were ready to dispense raccoon justice.

I awoke in an attitude of total.... "Uh oh..." So what am I to make of all this? What does all this mean ?

Don't Laugh.