At 2:51am I'm awakened by ridiculously loud chomping, the sound of four or maybe five things chomping dry cat food in discordant harmony, and it's so loud it's comical, as if the acoustics of the kitchen were constructed solely for this purpose. Grendel looks at me balefully from the foot of the bed, seemingly saying, "Well. Get on with it." I roll out from under the covers and stagger towards the kitchen, assuming my usual role of light-turner-on-er and scatterer-of-rogue-raccoons, but even after I'm in the kitchen, lights blazing, a couple still remain, the cheeky buggers.
I'm not close enough to the pantry to grab the broom, so I assume what can only be called the position of scaring-away-bears-in-sparkle-motion where I make myself as big and menacing as possible. Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum's eyes slightly widen, and they position themselves to escape back out the kitty door but don't actually leave. I'm evolutionarily enraged, Homo sapiens s. infurious, and charge them, which does the job, sending them flying through the portal to their waiting mother and siblings, everybody whuffling and grunt-barking in terror and indignancy.
I sweep up the cat food, replace the lid on the container (it used to live on top of the fridge for this purpose, but they stopped coming around and I got sloppy), and then sit in the corner and wait, because raccoons that sasstastic aren't going to give up after one banishment. Pretty soon, the motion lights go on, bless their telltale electric hearts, and somebody sticks his little bandit nose through the flap. I wait. The paws are next. Grendel is only slightly more graceful in his oopsing through - it's a hole constructed for an animal the height of a german shepherd, not a cat or raccoon - and Tweedle Dee lands with a furry thump on the doormat. The lights stay on outside, which means the ops team is in position (if not stealth-trained) and ready for advancement.

I wait until Tweedle Dum is fully inside, preternaturally snaking his head around to investigate where the free food went, before I pick up the pillow from the makeshift kitchen nook and sling it at them. Tweedle Dee is flattened into the corner and scrambles in a pleasingly frantic way, but after he steadies himself he turns and sniffs it and then Tweedle Dum joins him and they're seriously trying to eat the damn pillow. I rush towards them, silently flailing, and they're out the door again, and this time I'm serious about making a point and I'm following them towards the escape hatch that goes under the deck that I cut open through the mesh just for Grendel and which they're now taking turns wriggling through like Br'er Rabbit.

I stare after them, willing them to just try and return, when I hear the bell on the gate across the deck make the faintest whisper of a ding and I step back and cock my head and there's the mama, in all her masked glory, straddling the top of the fence and looking rather pleased that she's successfully surrounded my house. As soon as I get to her side she's clambering down to one of her other babies and it's at this poor unfortunate soul that I huck the pillow, collapsing him like a souffle on the stairs. But somehow these two have no fear of projectile objects, either, because after he gets back up he and the mother turn and investigate it and that's when I snap and fling the gate open, the bell slamming the wood slats, the neighbor's chihuahua preaching stridently from her second story seat across the street, the night air curiously warm and wet, and I reach down for the pillow and hurl it at them dodgeball style with the intent to smash.

and that's what finally sends them scurrying around the corner towards a hole in the ground or a tree or maybe the North Berkeley BART station.