Last night I went out into the parking lot and someone had hit a raccoon in the road. This girl had found the raccoon and was trying to wrestle it into a sleeping bag with two tennis rackets.
I've seen a lot of strange things in my time, but that was one of the strangest.
Apparently her roommate had called animal control and they would have destroyed the thing. So she had the brilliant idea of nursing it back to health. A wild raccoon.
Don't get me wrong, I like raccoons just fine. The raccoon was the mascot of my elementary school. We were the Butte Bandits. BUT YOU DO NOT TRY TO MOVE WILD ANIMALS INTO SLEEPING BAGS WITH TENNIS RACKETS. No amount of compassion can change this.
It kept trying to bite her. She didn't catch the hint.
The last thing I saw (she did manage to get the thing into the sleeping bag - I think it finally realized that struggling was useless against an ocean of stupidity that deep and wide) was her roommate carrying the sleeping bag (complete with raccoon - batteries not included) into their apartment building.
Later that night I saw the raccoon again. Apparently it escaped off the balcony and ran for the forest. Or the closest thing it could find to a forest in the middle of town.
I hope it was just stunned so it got away safely. But I bet that when it got back to its little raccoon buddies they didn't believe the story.
"What's that, Stripes? You were abducted by giant tan things with no hair and round sticks? Tell me another one. I'm dyin' over here."