when first we cracked the gates

sometimes at night in the deepest sleep I'll dream of footsteps in the hall outside our bedroom. hands moving bowls and boxes. the rattling sound of the door. when I rouse myself enough to check, I'll find that I have company in the hallway. squinty eyes will stare up at me, unafraid.

when Gavin and I first merged households, that merger came with two cats and two dogs. as a couple, we were definitely pet door material. and for the first two years in our current house that door opened for the menagerie peacefully.

in the past year new visitors have found the door. muddy tracks lead regularly through the hall, into the bathroom, to the pet bowls, and just outside the bedroom doors. raccoons, it turns out, are notoriously dirty pests, and the amount of grime they track is frankly staggering.

while we have tried many strategies to convince our guests that they are unwanted--mostly involving chicken wire and prayer (which have worked equally well so far)--we have failed. only two real choices remain--lock out our pets, along with the raccoons, or throw open the gates.

what we've learned about ourselves is we don't lock out the pets.

periodically the children catch wind of our evening visitors and decide they'd prefer to remain in their rooms at night than risk an encounter, so we all huddle behind doors and try to ignore the telltale signs. footsteps in the depth of darkness. black black eyes. crisscross mud prints to wipe away in the morning. our tiny, domestic battleground. its accommodation.