People really do take animals for dim-witted runts. People think that just because we have hands, we are better than all other creations. But it’s wrong. It’s wrong. Do you hear me? I say, it’s wrong. And I can prove it wrong. Because today my mom is mad because raccoons got into her sliced carrots.

You’re probably thinking, “So?” Well, stop thinking that. Because it was wrapped in plastic wrap, buried under a layer of ice, and then put inside a cooler, which was then shoved underneath the picnic table seat, with three inches of clearance.

I don’t know what you’re thinking about right now, but I was thinking, “How’d they do it?”

Well, the story is that we went camping at Lake Texana State Park. It’s a pretty park, beautiful lakes, lots of campsites, a festival for painting fish when we got there… your average state park. We had saved some food for the next night, and we stuffed it under the afore mentioned picnic table.

We figured deer or raccoons wouldn’t be able to get in. The front was shut tightly, and it was filled with ice anyway.

That night, we were being bitten by mosquitoes.

I also never believed mosquitoes could be so smart. At first I thought it was just a few that we accidentally let in when the car doors were open. So I became a mass-murderer and started killing mosquitoes.

I hate showing off (okay, I love showing off), but I killed maybe 12 mosquitoes that night, by very sneakily turning on just one light and waiting patiently. Maybe it was mass murder, but this way, I wouldn’t get murdered.

I was just thinking that I had killed all of the annoying little things and had just laid down to rest when a strange sensation started on one spot of my leg. Without thinking, I slapped it hard. It was a mosquito, busy having a snack… on me.

Another one buzzed next to my ear, and I nearly howled in anguish. Just how many were there?

While I was being bitten to death, however, my dad was noticing a strange clonk-a-bonk sound from outside our car. It was repeated over and again, and it was as if something was bonking and clonking something.

I thought it wouldn’t be much, but my dad grabbed the flashlight and aimed it around. The light beam passed by our cooler. Four bright things shown back at us.

We slashed our light back at the cooler. Two raccoons were next to them, four bright eyes staring vividly into the light. My dad jumped into his jeans and ran out of our car.

The raccoons had managed to open the cooler. One of them was holding it open with his hands, the other inside rummaging. You’d never believe that raccoons were capable of being so smart.

My dad shooed them away, and then assessed the damage (I stole the word from the inspectors that came to our school to look for damage from Hurricane Ike).

My dad gave a little cry. A huge bag of ice we had put on top of the food had been ripped open and ice pieces were lying strewn on the ground. Underneath was my mom’s sliced carrots.

My mom is very very picky about her carrots. She spent a lot of time making them, making them “perfectly tasty”, and she didn’t even eat any herself, because she wanted to save it for us.

And now, the plastic wrap covering it was torn apart, muddy raccoon prints all over my mother’s food. Thankfully, though, underneath, the noodle sauce, which was even more special to my mother, was unharmed.

My father walked back to the car with the cooler, sticking it in the front seat, muttering about how animals were too smart these days. On the way, he checked out the window.

We have a high-tech specially made screen for our window, especially for camping. We open the windows for the front seat, with three side is slammed shut inside the door, and the bottom held down by magnets. It is, if I say so, a pretty good invention, and we have it put on both sides.

One side is held down by a super-strong magnet that is huge, but the other side is held down by a few smaller magnets from my science kit (still VERY high-tech). My dad examined that side, and whacked the door.

It turned out, mosquitoes were climbing up the sides slowly, turning and twisting. The magnets had been bumped to the side a little, and since the magnets had been stapled in, it had formed a tiny space where they could climb in.

Normally, mosquitoes weren’t that smart, and I don’t mean to insult them, but we have a small gap half an inch wide in our breakfast table room window, and we don’t ever get mosquitoes (we don’t open that window that much anymore anyway).

Before you know it, mosquitoes and raccoons will be teaming up to over throw the world. Yikes, I better get ready for the war!