Dear Trash Pandas,<\/p>\n
I owe you an apology.<\/p>\n
Last weekend, after what I\u2019ll call \u201ca completely honest lack of judgment,\u201d I accidentally left an entire, unopened package of magically delicious gummies on my back deck. I discovered this the next morning when I stepped outside to find the shredded package and its empty wrapper contents scattered across my backyard like the Sunday morning after a Dave Matthews concert at the Gorge.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Plastic wrappers torn to pieces. Gummy remnants, sticky and glistening with dew stuck to the decking, and what looked like muddy little handprints on the compost bin.<\/p>\n
My first reaction was: \u201cOh no!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Then I thought: \u201cDAMN!\u201d<\/p>\n
Because somewhere between 1 and 3 a.m., a family of raccoons collectively entered orbit.<\/p>\n
I can only imagine their experience. A family of raccoons sitting silently in the backyard, staring at the moon for 45 glorious uninterrupted minutes. One becoming convinced he could finally understand jazz while another tries to wash his sticky little hands for two hours straight in the muddy backyard creek. Shining little eyes peering toward the heavens like they\u2019d just discovered God.<\/p>\n
Were there revelations? Tears? Did someone say, \u201cGuys\u2026 what if humans are the pests?\u201d<\/p>\n
I need answers, but more evidently, I need a backyard motion-censored camera.<\/p>\n
Mostly, though, I need to apologize for what must have been an emotionally complicated evening. While you were simply pursuing your honest little raccoon lives, rummaging through garbage cans and harassing the neighbor\u2019s cat at 2 a.m., I, instead, accidentally turned my backyard into a woodland drug den of shame.<\/p>\n
The good news is that everyone appears to have survived, and I have learned my lesson to check the back deck before retiring for the evening.<\/p>\n
So, if you\u2019re reading this, little bandits, I\u2019m sorry. I\u2019m switching to a gummy brand that only offers child-proof containers.<\/p>\n
Sincerely,<\/p>\n
Still finding wrappers in the Rhodies<\/p>\n
\n\tRelated<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dear Trash Pandas, I owe you an apology. Last weekend, after what I\u2019ll call \u201ca completely honest lack…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":673317,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-673316","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673316","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=673316"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/673316\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/673317"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=673316"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=673316"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=673316"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}