Story Behind The Poem The Bandit

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Late one night I was working night shift. I stopped by my place to make use of the washroom. Everything in the neighbourhood was quiet and as I walked towards my gate, I heard a rustling sound off to my right. It was quite loud and immediately my imagination started playing with my mind. Since there had been a series of home invasion robberies in the area against the elderly, and my 79 year old father was at home, I immediately thought maybe the suspects had targeted him.

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I went into "stealth" mode in the hopes I could sneak up on the culprit(s). As I got closer to the yard, the rustling grew louder. Suddenly the bandit broke from his cover and ran towards me, growling loudly. Needless to say I was more than a little startled by the sudden movement. My hand went to the butt of my .40 caliber Beretta. I soon saw that my attacker was a raccoon who must have weighed close to 40 pounds. He was a big sucker.

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Now, everyone thinks raccoons are such cute little creatures, but, let me tell you that is not the case. The raccoon is in the badger family of animals. They are viscous and dangerous animals if cornered. They are also notorious for carrying rabies. This was a determined one and I kept backing up and finally drew my gun. Just as I thought I was going to have to shoot him, he or she turned away and wandered off down the street, a self-satisfied look on his face.

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Nobody else witnessed the incident, and I could have kept quiet about it, but afterwards I thought about how funny I must have looked and decided to add to the poetry collection.