We had a family of raccoons take up residence in our yard. At first I enjoyed watching the fat, fluffy babies following momma around. However, it quickly became clear that they were systematically planning and training to murder my husband and I and take over our house. They would constantly "play" fight while making…

Well now, past two years, we've had groundhogs. SO CUTE. And they alway make 2 babies. And they indeed whistle.

Man when you see a raccoon sitting at a picnic table like a person, eating a peanut, it's hard to not swoon. That one would actually look at me when I talked to her. I think she was a special case :)

I thought they were cute until I was about seven, and my best friend's cat got killed by one of those fuckers. RIP Runty, and Godspeed Cas.

They are adorable BECAUSE they have hands! Little people hands! My neighbor has an old shed and almost every year some animal takes up residence underneath. For a while it was raccoons, and they would come into my yard to eat bird seed under the feeder and old bread I throw out there. Eventually they get used to me…

We learned how to predator-proof our coop after that, so at least that was a good outcome. The next batch lives for a long long time.

they killed our chickens also, tore them apart and left pieces around the coop. I hate raccoons.

Yes, the hands!! They give me nightmares.

You got me curious with the salivary gland comment so I checked it out. We're both wrong about the reason they dip their food in water.

And they're only too happy to brutally murder your cats and smaller dogs, and if they can get their little hands inside the wires of your chicken coop and grab even a handful of chicken, they'll tear chunks out of them. And if your birds or pets happen to eat their shit, they can get real sick.

I've long documented my fear of raccoons around these parts. Those fuckers have tiny human hands and are fucking SMART. We've had to amend our garbage cans at the tree museum I work at 6 different times to deal with them.

Theyre also too intelligent. Two situations lead me to this:

as someone that got bitten by a racoon and enjoyed the several month-long-anti-rabies-shot-fest, don't just sit there and let a feral animal, 'do its thing.'

They are cool looking, but they really are nasty, vicious animals. My husband, and animal lover, keeps a BB gun for only one reason: to shoo off raccoons. They'll tear you to shreds as soon as look at you.

when I used to dye my hair pink, just about any product made the color transfer. Even plain old hairspray. I don't think there's much work around.

Oils shouldn't make your color fade. Have you tried them?

I can see a faint resemblance, but only faint. Little Edie in her heydey was gorgeous, to me, whereas JL only ever was mildly pretty.

If I ever have a daughter, I would want to know that she can kill for domination, control, and humiliation if that's what she chooses.