Erin: The Todd is trying to murder me — Trazadone and the raccoon of death

Raccoon. Photo: Wikipedia

SALT LAKE CITY, Utah, March 16, 2017 (Gephardt Daily) — The Todd likes to communicate by leaving notes on our oven hood.

Which is fine, but they’re usually so curt they make sense only to him.

notes

I studied today’s with some concern. An Issue? A Trazadone Issue? What does that mean? Did MacLean get a hold of his meds? Did he OD? Is my son in Rehab? WHAT?

Turns out that the bottle fell over in the fridge and leaked out. What a relief. Today’s horrifying chain of events averted.

But this isn’t the first time.

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Um. Okay. I logically looked IN the oven, assuming he meant for me to take it out for dinner. No chicken. I checked the fridge. Nope. Looked outside the side door that we call our “White Trash Winter Kitchen” that we use for food overflow when it’s cool.

No chicken.

Then, my fears rose. “There Is Chicken.”  Did that mean one of the neighbor’s chickens had escaped and our dog Gille had murdered it and The Todd was hiding the evidence? I was beginning an apology note to our neighbors as he came in. “Dear Shannon, I’m really sorry Gille got loose again and I hope the blood spatter from the chicken attack didn’t traumatize baby Adam and for heaven’s SAKE I hope the murder victim wasn’t Will’s chicken like last time because I know those nightmares went on for a couple of months.”

He opened one of the cabinets to reveal a giant plate of ice cold chicken. “Why didn’t you find it? I left a note!”

“Um, because you left it in the cabinet where we keep the dinner plates and the note didn’t mention that?”

“Where else would I hide the chicken to keep it away from the twins?” he asked, aggrieved.

You see my problem.

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Now, this note would have been especially helpful before I opened the garage door. I used to love raccoons. They’d visit us on the deck of our cabin and The Todd would leave a bowl of water and some fish scraps for them. The kids loved watching the little furry bandits eat the scraps and wash their masked faces with their clever paws. The screeching ball of death that flew hissing at my face as I opened the garage door was the Murderous Masked Ninja Avenger Of All Raccoons. He chased me around the yard as I screamed and the twins laughed helplessly, sure I was kidding around because raccoons — they’re so cute.  

Did you know raccoons have really sharp claws? And that hooking one of them in your heel right behind your Achilles tendon can sever it and leave you a limping wreck for the rest of your life? Yeah, the ER doctor shared that with me as he stitched up my foot. “You missed a permanent disability by one eighth of an inch!” he said jovially as he jammed the last bit of cotton thread into my heel.

The Todd came home to see me hoisting my gigantic bandaged limb onto the couch.

“What’s all this? What happened to you?”

“What happened to me? What happened to me?” I hissed.  “The killer raccoon in the garage happened to me!”

“Why did you open the garage?” He threw up his hands. “I wrote you a note saying ‘don’t open the garage!’  Why don’t you read these things!”

“Because I’d just come home from picking up the kids!” I shrieked. “I opened the garage door to put away some potting soil! Why was there a raccoon in our garage!”

The Todd looked at me like he’d married the most stupid woman alive. “Because,” he said with exaggerated patience. “I was waiting to see if he was going to be rabid or not. It was a safety measure.”

Then, there’s some notes that I just don’t want to decipher.  There’s some notes that make me simply pick up my car keys and exit the house.  You’re on your own, honey.  Good luck.

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