The Raccoon, the Compost Heap, and the Surrender

There is a raccoon who has decided the compost heap is his alone.

I have tried, in this order, the following things.

First, the locking bin. He opened it. I have watched him do it on the trail camera my sister insisted I buy, and I still don't know how. At one point he appears to be turning the latch with his tiny little thumbs in a way that should require a labor union to discuss.

Then I moved the bin. He found it.

Then bungee cords. He chewed through them, slowly, over the course of a week, and at no point did he vary his technique in a way that suggested he had considered alternatives.

Then a cinderblock on the lid. He is sixteen pounds, and the cinderblock is thirty-two. I do not know how he moves it. I have done the math, and the math says none of this should be possible.

Then a motion-activated sprinkler. He enjoyed it.

Then a new bin with what the man at the hardware store called a "critter-proof closure system." The raccoon, and I mean this sincerely, appeared to find this personally insulting. He opened it in twenty-one minutes. He stared directly into the trail camera before he left. I don't want to project, but he seemed smug.

So last night I took the rind of a cantaloupe (one of the good ones from the farm stand, heavy in your hand) and I put it on top of the closed bin. I didn't lock anything or cinderblock anything. I just placed the rind up there like I was setting out a small offering at a shrine.

Then I went inside, poured a glass of wine, and watched him on the trail camera from the couch.

He came out of the treeline eleven minutes later, stopped, looked at the rind, checked the perimeter, came back, and then, I swear this is true, he ate the cantaloupe rind the way someone accepts an award.

I raised my glass to the trail camera.

I am not going to tell you the raccoon was a symbol. The raccoon does not want to be your symbol. The raccoon wants the cantaloupe.

All I am saying is this. There are things I have been trying to control for longer than I care to admit, like a neighbor who parks on my grass, a certain uncle who calls every December, the way my back seizes up if I sleep on my left side three nights in a row, and the timing of my own body, which has stopped consulting me altogether.

And it turns out, some nights, the most sophisticated magic I can perform is to put the melon rind out and go inside.

Not every fight is yours to win. Some of them aren't even fights, just raccoons.

Eat up, buddy.