Late-Night Visitor

First, I apologize for this post being "off-topic."  It is not about my kid, nor is it about my job. Did anything humorous happen today involving my child?  Yes.  But this is much more important: There is something in my garage.  Let's venture back in time to about two days ago . . .

Upon entering my garage in the morning, things were . . . amiss.  The rack (not that kind of rack, people) holding the basketballs was knocked over and the balls (not those kinds of balls, come on) were everywhere.  A container of empty cans (you know which "cans" I'm referring to) was knocked off of the side of the boat and onto the ground.  Various items including light bulbs, a can of WD-40, some wood glue (seriously, focus!), and windshield cleaner were scattered on the ground, far below the workbench they normally sit on.  Now, my first thought was that, since I hadn't closed the garage door until well after dark the night before,  someone had been in my garage.  A thief!  The only problem with this theory: nothing was missing.  So, perhaps, it was someone harassing me.  A serial killer?  A vandalizing teenager?  Or maybe, it was something like this:

Image c/o www.scaryforkids.com

After further inspection of the garage, I ruled out all of the above options.  Why?  Well, whatever had been in my garage had eaten a fair amount of rat poison.  (Okay, so I still didn't totally rule out serial killer at this point).  While the discovery of the partially-eaten rat poison did calm my nerves a little, it brought a new dilemma to light: whatever ate this poison could potentially be dead.  In my garage.  Ugh.  So, I grudgingly searched the garage for a dead carcass (And by "searched," I mean I looked around for all of 15 seconds.  If something died, I'd smell it in a few days, right?). 

So, that night, I closed the garage door early, well before dusk.  Truthfully, at this point, I figured whatever had been in the garage had crawled off and died somewhere.  I mean, it ate A LOT of poison.  Problem solved!  Or so I thought. . .

The next morning, I gleefully went out into the garage to get the dog's food, not even worrying about my visitor from the other day.  It was dead, right?  Wrong.  My guest had been back, and this time, it made a bigger mess.  This time, not only did it get into the same stuff as before (basketballs and rat poison included), it also knocked over a handful of glass bottles (yep, those glass bottles) and left broken glass all over the garage floor.  So, at this point, I'm irritated, and imagining my visitor is something like this . . .

Image c/o www.lolzombie.com

Yep, that has to be it: a beer-drinking, basketball-playing, rat poison-munching raccoon.  It made perfect sense.  Well, Mr. Party-Boy Raccoon, I will beat you at your own game.  I shut the garage door very early.  I cleaned up the mess.  I got rid of all the rat poison (Seriously, how is it not dead from eating all that poison?).  I shut AND locked the door leading from the garage into the backyard.  I even made sure the garage light was shut off.  Ha ha, sucker (I'm trying to keep this PG-13, so you know what word I really used).  I went to bed totally convinced that my new friend would not be back.  And, if it did come back, it would be so upset (almost to the point of depression) that I got rid of its tasty snack that it would just leave and find another garage to call home. . . .

Wrong again.  Whatever it is (and I have a theory on this, just wait), came back AGAIN.  It was clearly NOT in a deep state of depression over the fact that I threw away its late-night treat.  This time, it was back with a vengeance.  It knocked the basketballs over again.  It knocked over more bottles.  It knocked things off of shelves, knocked over crates, and it left EVIDENCE.  Now, if you're not sure what I mean by evidence, think about it: wild animal, in the garage, angry that I took away its food . . . yep, it peed and pooped in my garage.  What the hell!  Now, before I found the evidence, I was still thinking raccoon, or even this . . .(actually this is more of what I was thinking at this point)

Image c/o www.piperbasenji.blogspot.com

But, the evidence suggests that it is nothing more than a cat.  A stupid, disgusting, filthy, troublesome, beer-drinking, rat poison-eating, nuisance of a CAT.  Well, guess what?  IT'S ON CAT!

I'll keep you posted as to how the rest of the saga unfolds . . .