It's All True

We speak with our neighbors on a purely random basis - our lives being what they are and theirs being what theirs are - and the subject matter can vary widely. The mailman, the garbage collection, our cars, the cats, sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll...
A few months ago our neighbor of the leaky pipe and car battery variety stopped me to chat and as nice a guy as he is, I have to wonder if he's all there considering some of the things he brings up. This particular time he said he had seen a raccoon on our back porch eating the cat food one night. I was sure he had mistaken one of the larger feral cats in the neighborhood - who all eat on our back porch - for a raccoon. No one else had mentioned seeing anything remotely like that - and Tarzan seems to see EVERY thing that goes on in our area. Where would the thing live? There aren't many trees and no dirt except under people's houses and nearly everyone has dogs. So I dismissed the thought and promptly forgot about it.
Let me publicly apologize to my neighbor right now.
It is all true.
Last night I opened the door to let one of the cats out and sitting right there, all plump and furry, black mask and striped tail attesting to his species, chowing down on the cat food, was a raccoon.
A huge raccoon.
Like four times the size of my alpha male cat.
And something clicked in my head, all the clues I hadn't seen, how my six cats managed to eat an entire month's worth of food in five days, some of Ocelot's freak outs and wounds from fighting, why there are always puddles near their water bowl...the raccoon is washing his (their) food in the water.
Of course this all went through my head in 3 seconds and by the time I thought to get a camera the raccoon was gone and out of the yard. Past my cats who looked as surprised as I felt.
What I haven't figured out is where he's staying.

This is me, and you are totally getting a picture the next time.