The Return of Mr. Gummy

One day, back in aught-four, we heard scratching coming from our fireplace chimney. Within a few hours, the scratching stopped and we hoped that whatever it was had climbed out, flown out, or returned to the netherworld. Unfortunately, it hadn't. It died. This became obvious a day later when a menagerie of insects began to appear in our house. By the time they started introducing themselves ("Hi, you may remember me from episode #23 of CSI. The original CSI, of course. I wouldn't be caught dead working with David Caruso."), we knew it was time to call in a chimney sweep.

By the time the chimney sweeps arrived, the smell was so bad we couldn't go into the house. I went on the roof with the chimney sweeps (something I really don't like doing because our roof has a much greater incline than I'm used to). Looking into the chimney was easy because it's missing the chimney cap (hence the whole problem). On one side of the pipe about eight feet down, I could see a big furry ball. No head, no tail, just a big furry back, too big to be anything other than a raccoon. More details you don't want. Suffice it to say that the chimney sweeps had to remove the pipe segments down to the raccoon, then climb down and remove Mr. Gummy piece by piece. Then pour lime down on what was left. This process cost us so much that we couldn't afford to fix the chimney cap. We did attach a tarp across the chimney which apparently lasted somewhat less than two years.

This week: Earlier this week, Foxy (a recent canine addition to our family) began spending a lot of time in the fireplace. The more time she spent on hind legs sniffing at the flue, the more we suspected we had another "chimney friend". However, this time we never heard any scratching and we had more pressing house problems to worry about, like not having running water! Anyway, yesterday we started to smell something coming from the chimney. So before you could say "There goes my Saturday!" I was climbing to the roof with my trusty flashlight and a knapsack of lime. (Please no "now all we need is the coconut" jokes. We ODed on those yesterday. Uh...lime and coconut jokes, that is. Not just the...oh, nevermind.)

So I've climbed to the apex of the roof and I'm looking down into the chimney with the flashlight (the blistering San Antonio Sun hadn't made it over the trees quite yet). Sure enough, it's another raccoon. I can see the same furry ball as last time, again about eight feet down, only this time it's on the other side of the pipe...the side that I really have to lean over to see. It's really good that this roof doesn't have a sharp $!#&*@# incline!

So I unzip the bag, lean way over the chimney and begin pouring the lime on the corpse. Instantly, the chimney fills with dust from the white powder, making it impossible to see anything. However my ears pick up the scratching sounds of very pissed raccoon! As the smoke begins to clear, I see light glinting off an eyeball...an eyeball looking straight up at me. $#&*@#! I've just poured lime on a live animal! Now, if this was a cartoon, the raccoon would have jumped straight out of the chimney covered in white powder and danced around the roof while I yelled "It's a ghost! It's a ghost! The dead live!" and then I'd fall off the roof and land on a rake or something. But since this wasn't a cartoon, the trapped raccoon stayed out of reach and I yelled down to my wife "Get a rope!"

The first bit of advice the chimney sweeps gave us two years ago was "if this ever happens again pour lime on the body before it begins to stink". That's why I'm up on the roof now. The second bit of advice was "if you have a live raccoon in your chimney, drop it a rope. It will climb up the rope and your problem's solved." Welcome to plan B.

Unfortunately, I didn't explain to my wife why I needed the rope and she assumed I screamed because I slipped and needed a rescue rope. This slight misunderstanding got a rope on the roof in record time which was good for the potential, future Mr. Gummy II. I lowered the rope to the raccoon. He couldn't care less. He had already burrowed back into a ball and was now sleeping on a bed of lime. Fortunately, I have watched enough CSI (again with the CSI) to know that lime doesn't dissolve a body as fast as people think it does, so there's no immediate danger to the raccoon...unless of course you count that it hasn't had any food or water in days...and that it may have broken a leg during the fall.

So I poke it in the head with the rope. It twitches an ear. I tie a loop in the rope (not a noose!) and lower it back down. I eventually bother the raccoon enough to lift it's head and I get the rope around its neck. Yes! Then the raccoon twitches his head out of the rope. No! By this time, I've been on the roof for about an hour, the temperature is over 100 and I am covered in sweat. Any second now, my glasses are going to slide off my face and onto the raccoon's and then we're back to the cartoon.

I finally admit defeat and we move onto plan C. Dw (dear wife) calls the Animal Rescue people. This call gets her an "I'm sorry. This does not constitute an emergency. We can't send anybody until Monday." $#&*@#!

Plan D: Dw figures that food may coax it out or give it enough energy to react to my pestering. Good idea. She throws a bag of baby carrots up to me. I open the bag and drop a few down the chimney. All the carrots either pelt him in the back or land in the lime and sink below the surface. Either way, it doesn't get a reaction.

Plan E: Ds (dear son) lets Foxy back into the house so that she can bark up the chimney at the raccoon. I'm deafened. The raccoon doesn't care.

Plan F: I tell dw that I need my quarterstaff and a bucket of water. Now things are getting interesting. My first idea was to lower the staff down to the raccoon a see if he'd climb up it. My second idea was to poke it awake enough to care about food or water (Trust me, I was there once. And being poked and kept awake until I could get medical attention saved my life. Seriously.). My third idea was to use the quarterstaff to pole vault over to the neighbor’s roof like Kevin Bacon in Tremors. I've always wanted to do that.

Where was I? Oh, yes, the raccoon.

It didn't care about the stick any more than it cared about the rope or the carrots. However, a few years ago I added a leather strap to my quarterstaff so that I could carry it over my shoulder and leave my hands free for other things (like carrying a tired child through the Texas Renaissance Festival). I figured that maybe I could use the strap and stick to snare the animal. Unfortunately, the strap came undone at the last faire and I hadn't fixed it yet. So there I am, standing at the apex of my roof, sweat dripping down my face, looking over my glasses at one end of a stick, trying to remember how to tie a double constrictor knot. I half-expected a neighbor to come by at that moment and ask me what the hell I was doing. I wonder what I would have responded? "I'm mending my quarterstaff! What's it to you?" or "Nevermind! Just stand over there with this apple on your head!" or maybe just "$#&*@#!".

Suffice it to say that the snare didn't work. What's left? The water.

Plan G: I poured a little water on the raccoon. The change was immediate. I don't know whether it was the smell of fresh water or the shock of it landing on him that got the reaction but reaction it got. The raccoon jumped a foot into the air and landed on the wall of the chimney, still about six feet down. Fortunately, when our chimney was constructed, the mason didn't scrape the excess mortar from between the bricks on the inside so the raccoon had handholds.

So right about now I'm looking for the fastest, safest way to get off the roof since in any minute there's going to be a hungry, injured raccoon popping it's head out of the chimney. Any minute now...

I peer over the edge...and the raccoon hasn't moved. It still wants to curl up and die, only now it's content to do it vertically. So a little more water. Bang! It's up a another foot. Then a little more water. And another foot. By now, the raccoon is drenched but I've washed most of the lime from its body. I can see that the lime already did damage to one of his eyes but the other one is clear. Thank God. The raccoon is still a couple of feet down. I'm ready to defend myself with my quarterstaff if need be and I've made sure that ds is safely in the house. The raccoon still isn't moving. One more splash of water, and it happens.

The raccoon pops out of the chimney like a champagne cork, lands on the roof, slides down it at a rate of speed that would make Tony Hawk proud, falls off the roof, lands in the back yard and runs away over the fence before Foxy can say "What the $#&*@#!"

The moral of this story: 1. If you have a dead animal in your chimney, make sure it is dead first. 2. If you have a live animal in your chimney. #&@ the rope trick. Go straight for the water.

Thank you and good night.

August 2006