El Loco

"That's it! That's what I heard!" Susie yelled.

I tilted my head to one side, tucked my auburn colored hair behind my ear, and pretended to listen harder. "I still don't hear anything." I told her.

She stared at me quite incredulously. She could not, or would not, believe that I heard nothing. “You have the hearing of a bat, how can you sit there and tell me you heard nothing?”

Susie is my sister. We look a lot like, and yet we are nothing alike. I am taller by two inches to her five-foot six inches, and outweigh her by a good hundred and twenty pounds. I’m not what you would call overtly fat, it’s just that my sister swims on the thin side of our family gene pool. I have naturally dark auburn colored hair, and, well, no one is exactly sure what color my sister’s hair is any more. I think she used to be a tow-headed blonde. Now, let’s just say she’s colorful. Susie says she doesn’t color her hair, but a sister knows. Hey, when you change your hair color as often as you change your socks, even the neighbors notice.

She was still staring at me like I was crazy. Which many would say is a mild descriptor, and I’m completely okay with this as I tend to live life on my own terms, but that’s a story for another day. We were sitting in one corner of our favorite coffee shop. It wasn't our normal seating arrangement, as we both preferred to sit outside. But mid-afternoon of a late July summer's day was not the right time to sit outside, when you live in the middle of the high desert of Southern California. We had retreated inside, to the far corner of the room, nearer the windows than we would have preferred, but it was still a nice break from the blistering heat outside.

***

Her normally beautiful blue eyes, were now the size of saucers and had taken on a crazed look. "Are you deaf?" She accused more than asked.

"The last time I was at the doctors they said my hearing was fine, so I'm going to say 'No'."

"Well, whatever it is, I don't like the sound of that noise it's making,” Susie replied.

I still heard nothing, so I just stared back at her and listened some more. Still nothing. Five minutes of sitting in deafening silence with my sister freaking out over nothing, and then it happened… I heard what Susie had been freaking out about.

*scritch scritch*

Susie jumped. "Did you hear that?:"

I had to admit it, that time I heard something. "Yea, I heard."

*scritch scritch*

Wondering what it was that I had just heard, I started looking around under the table. I stood up and looked behind my seat, then towards the window behind me. It was then that I noticed there was a raccoon sitting on its haunches outside. It looked kind of lonely. Until I noticed what was sitting next to it. A fork. A dirty old fork that someone had dropped and had neglected to pick up. I waited to see what the raccoon would do.

He stared at me. I stared back. I say he, because the raccoon reminded me of a crazy ex-boyfriend that Susie had dated back in high school. We were at a stand-still, the crazy raccoon, that I unconsciously named ‘El Loco’, and me. I could hear Susie in the background telling me to keep looking for whatever was making the noises, but I was positive that the raccoon was at the root of things.

I waited, staring him down. El Loco stared back. Susie freaked out, and walked to the front of the café and started talking to the manager about ‘ghosts’ and ‘haunted old buildings’. It was pretty apparent that she was not paying much more attention to Susie than I was. It was a maddening cycle. It felt like forever. The truth is, it was only about 45 seconds before it happened.

Still holding my gaze, El Loco made his move. He reached for the fork with his front left paw. He scooted it towards his body. Very carefully, and not looking away, he picked it up and scraped the window with it.

*scritch scritch*

Susie screamed. I burst out laughing. El Loco put the fork down and watched every move Susie made. He had won. At that moment, I realized that he'd been watching Susie for the thirty or forty minutes we had been at the coffee shop, most likely enthralled by her apricot highlights and her high-pitched squeals. The first time he scraped the window was most likely just a side effect of picking up the fork off the ground. The ensuing spectacle and Susie’s continued over exaggerated screams caused the cycle to continue.

With one final look my way, and a tilt of his head, El Loco was finished. The war was over, the battle was won. He turned his back to me, reached over and grabbed the fork, and scooted away with it. He would be armed and ready the next time he ran into Susie the Screamer and would be prepared to do battle once again. I hollered at Susie to get her attention so I could point out the cause of all her distress. She refused to listen so I chalked it up to just another fun moment for my memoirs.