Many years ago I did a favor  for a friend and he said he wanted to give me and my husband and children a gift and he would drop it off at our house.    True to his word  the next day he showed up at our door carrying a wriggling, very unhappy raccoon, a tiny little guy who was not all pleased when he was handed over to me.  I held him at arms’ length, knowing what damage he could inflict with those sharp teeth.  “Oh, you really didn’t have to give us a gift.” I said, but by then the man was halfway down the steps running to his car.  That should have been a warning sign of what  was to come.

I took the poor, scared little creature into the  house and we all decided he was probably hungry and needed a bottle of milk…right away.  My husband, Dick, went to the store and bought a little baby bottle and we warmed some milk and handed it to him.  We named him Bandit because of the mask he wore. He quickly scampered into the back  yard and as fast as you can say “little devil” he ran across the grass and up into high branches of a medium sized green ash tree.  We let him lie up there and suck that bottle a long time then suggested he come down so we could go eat OUR dinner.  He ignored us.  In fact he climbed higher.  We begged him, we offered cookies, and did all we knew how to do to entice him into coming close enough to grab him.  He didn’t budge.  By now he realized the bottle was completely empty, threw it at us and went one branch higher.

“This calls for serious  action,” Dick observed and grabbed the garden hose.  He turned it on full blast and Bandit screamed at us…then climbed higher.  When  he reached the tip-top of the tree and could no longer escape the blasting cold water he began his descent, branch by branch.  When he was within arm’s length Dick grabbed  him and didn’t let go even though his efforts were being rudely rebuffed.  We went inside the house where our dinner waited and Dick took him down into the basement and slammed the door.

As we began our meal we heard lots of disturbing noises coming up through the floor, breaking glass and stuff hitting the concrete floor.  After dinner  we reluctantly went down to see what damage he had done.  It  was horrible, the scene we looked upon.  He had made his way around the highest row of cement blocks which made up  the wall and knocked over every bottle and jar we had stored  there.  The floor was strewn with broken glass and other miscellaneous articles he had thrown out of his way as he went around the room.  He assumed a defensive, growling stance and dared us to try and catch him.  Armed with heavy gloves and a blanket Dick DID catch him and took  him out to the garage where he would spend the night.  One thing we knew for certain, HE WOULD  NOT  be living in our house very long.

The next morning when Dick left for work Bandit hissed at him then threw a couple tools for good measure, Dick caught him and threw him in a cage and called out to me, “Tonight he goes.”

That evening we went for a car ride, accompanied by Bandit in his cage.  We drove to a spot about three miles from our house to an area of few houses but many trees.  We let Bandit out of the cage watched as he ran up a nearby telephone pole, all the way to the top.

Now this could be the end of the story, but it isn’t.  Later that night  as we were watching tv all electrical power in our house went out.  We dialed Com Ed to report the outage but the line was busy as it would be for the next hour.  We looked out our front door and there were no street lights on and no houses  showed the glow of lights When we finally reached the emergency number we were told that electricity was out in a ten-square mile area and it would be hours before it  would be restored.

Imagine our surprise when we picked up a local newspaper the next day and the lead story was about a raccoon that had been found electrocuted at the base of a telephone pole on the street where we dropped off Bandit.  The blackout the day before  was due to something chewing through some important electrical lines, which killed it and threw ten square miles into darkness and caused distress throughout many neighborhoods.  It was then I decided  that if I ever did a favor for anyone again I would say upfront, “And I don’t want to be repaid.”  Somewhere in raccoon heaven Bandit is probably feeling very smug and happy about what he accomplished.