Raccoons and their razor sharp claws

Last night I accompanied two of my lovely friends to an evening of Leslie Blodgett and QVC (Leslie being the famous face to our makeup brand/employer, and QVC being one of the many avenue of which they make millions of dollars... and by "they" I mean Leslie). The evening started out somewhat boring but exciting all at the same time because when you are watching Leslie and all these QVC nutties, you never know whats going to happen next that will cause you to break out in laughter. We laughed quite a bit... in between rants about how they do not do things correctly, and how the packaging they choose is obsurd, and how Sarah cannot stand when everything is not uniform... all the while Amanda did her part to dispense of a half a bottle of wine and I did what I could to stay comfortable on Gloria's (Sarah's grandma) wicker-like chair... Once we reached the 12:00 hour, we were ready to wrap things up... Now, let me explain where we were each sitting at this point.. Well, Sarah was down stair asleep, but Amanda was on the north side of the kitchen table, and there is a sliding glass door leading out to the small deck on the south side of the kitchen table. I am currently located on the west side of the table, facing the window outside. Amanda is going on about something that I don't remember, and I was staring aimlessly out the windown at the pitch blackness... and I noticed something on the deck, right along side the sliding glass door, heading east from the wester direction... and my initial thought (mind you, all of these thoughts took place in a matter of miliseconds) was that it was a cat, because random cats roam around neighborhoods, right? And so I didn't think anything of it... Amanda is talking and talking and I'm sitting and dazing, and all of a sudden I realize that the "cat" I see outside of the door has a cute little black stripe over it's eyes, and a pointy little nose and a round head, and just so happens to look NOTHING like a cat, but a LOT like a freaking raccoon! I didn't even have words.. I didn't know what to say but I didn't want Amanda to miss this, so I reached over and slapped her arm a few times and just pointed out the window. She stopped talking, looked out, and we both just had a stare down with this raccoon... He literally stared at us for at least 4 seconds... and all that stood between us whas a small pane of glass... out of fear and gut reaction, I pulled my legs up off the floor so it couldn't eat my feet (yep, even through the window... it's totally possible) and then we laughed so hard we could barely breath as this little death monster trotted away.

Needless to say, Amanda had to walk me to my car...

-Laura