Felidae Robertus

Hey, here's a good idea.

Last night, I was at the gym. I work out right after work, so it's early evening. The quadriceps machine is against the wall, right by a window. I set my towel and water bottle on the ledge when I use the machine, and typically will take a look out the window to see what there is to see. There's a field in the distance that they let run wild with prairie grasses and such, and a bit of a wooded area off to one side, and with Spring being pretty fully sprung (it took a while this year), it's a nice view. Last night's view was made nicer by the presence of big ol' fat raccoon waddling around on the lawn right outside the building. I watched him for a while before continuing with my workout.

A few minutes and machines later, a couple of guys came in and were excitedly talking to the woman who was working there. I couldn't hear the much of the conversation, but I heard her say "I'll go out with you," just before the 3 of them went outside. I figured maybe they were going to check out Mr. Rocky Raccoon (Beatles reference, if you're scoring at home). We have a good number of people from India at work (did I mention that the gym is right at work, right in the same building?), and the one guy sounded like he's from there. In fact, the other guy sounded to be of some kind of Middle Eastern descent. I don't know how long these guys have been in the States, or how widespread raccoons are, so I thought maybe one or both of them had never seen one before. In my mind, that seemed a reasonable justification for the excitement. I know how excited I get when I get to see a new animal for the first time in the flesh. When I got to the cramp inducer... er, hamstring machine, which is right next to the quad machine, my peek out the window showed our party of 3 coming around the corner of the building, right in the same area where I'd last seen Rocky.

So I finished my workout, and I had a couple of questions to ask the woman who was working in the gym. The first quesion I had was, "Did you and those guys go outside to check out the raccoon that was out there?" No, she told me. That was not the purpose of their excursion. They went out investigating, she told me, because those two gentleman "thought they saw a bobcat." It's one thing when you're young, stupid and a guy - you're often doing dumb things, or your friends are, but you're young and stupid. It's something else entirely to be 35, be in discussion with someone who is more or less your contemporary in age (not to mention the other 2, who are probably both older than her, and one seemed to be older than me), and think, "Hmmm. That's a decision that could have led directly to the sudden and unplanned movement of a large quantity of blood from the inside to the outside of your corpus." Or words to that effect. I can't claim that precise wording for the original rough draft of my thought, which was more along the lines of, "Dumbass!" For the record, I don't think they saw a bobcat. But THEY thought so.

Maybe I'm the crazy one. I recognize that. That said, here's how I look at it. If I'm inside, and I think there's a bobcat outside, I don't go outside. I do not make an effort to eliminate the presence of barriers between me and the bobcat, and I damn sure don't endeavor to get myself closer to it. I'd love to see a live bobcat, under the right circumstances. I don't want to be in a position to have contact with the bobcat, tho, because of the very very small chance that I will be the one to dictate the details of said contact. My hand scratching a neck is great, and in that case, unlikely. I think I would much less enjoy fangs ripping through my corotid artery. Just a guess.

I did, however, say to wife when I told her this story that there is one circumstance under which I would be part of a group of 3 going to look for a bobcat. That is if I were absoultely, 100%, dead certain that I could run faster than at least one of my compatriots. I don't have to outrun the cat. I just need to outrun him.

Separately, this is weird. When I saw the raccoon, I not only thought of the name Rocky, from the song, but I thought of the name of a guy I knew in college. We often referred to him as The Raccoon because of the very dark coloring around his eyes. Maybe we should have called him The Bobcat, because I was certainly not interested in having any contact with him, if I could at all avoid it. Not my kind of guy. With that being the case, I have not seen him, and have had very rare occasion to recall his name, since college ended in the mid-90's. Yesterday, due to the random presence of a raccoon, his name made an unexpected mental appearance. This morning, I'm driving to work and listening to the radio. One of the shows I listen to in the morning will often read odd, interesting or ridiculous news stories from all over the country and world. One of this morning's stories, out of New Jersey, is of the parents of a 12-year-old boy who are suing the manufacturer and the retailer of an aluminium baseball bat, and Little League Baseball because a ball that was hit with the bat injured their son. (My question for the parents would be, if it's so obvious that the bat is dangerous for children to use, why did you let your son on the field while it was being used? But that, like the 2nd floor above my 1st-floor workspace, is another story.) Where it's weird is, they read this sentence out of the news story: It claims the defendants knew, or should have known, that the bat was dangerous for children to use, according to the family's attorney, (this jagdorf's name). What the hell is that? A name from the past that has been part of my consciousness for better than a decade, and here he is, 2 days in a row. I mean, I can't be sure that the lawyer guy is the jackass I knew, but the name in uncommon enough that it's likely. What the hell? Go away and leave me alone, you raccoon-looking freak.