Raccoon – The Red Pen of Doom

Does it get any better than a headline like that? Click here for the incident report.

So this convicted drunk driver has to blow into a tube before his car starts, and he’s drunk. Shocking. What’s this genius do?

He looks for a sober buddy to puff that tube for him so he can drive off.

The nearest buddy happens to be a raccoon rummaging through his garbage. Grabs the raccoon, somehow gets the animal to blow on the tube and yes, the car starts, with the animal now unconscious. Maybe he squeezed it too hard.

So he’s driving along when the raccoon wakes up to gets his revenge, scratching and clawing our drunken genius, who crashes into a fence.

This story has all the classic hallmarks of weird news: drunken idiots (almost always men), motor vehicles and dangerous wild animals. The only way to improve it would be to add firearms.

Sadly, the San Diego Police report that this is an internet hoax.

HOWEVER: The way it spread so fast shows that the bones of this story are strong. All the elements you need are there, and there’s no fat to trim. It’s an urban legend that’s evolved into a perfect little story.

Many moons ago, when the Series of Tubes was young, the Associated Press ran one of the best headlines IN THE HISTORY OF MAN.

Here it is:

Psycho killer raccoons terrorize Olympia

Now, since this is where I work, and my buddy Larry of the Palouse lived in this neighborhood at that time, we lost our minds. Because it was funny and insane and somewhat scary, if you had little pookies, puppies or cats.

This gang of raccoons was truly bloodthirsty. I could picture a horror movie, PSYCHO KILLER RACCOONS, being far more scary and realistic than 90 percent of the teen slasher films Hollywood pumps out.