A raccoon entered a liquor store the other day and drank his fill: rum, moonshine, even peanut butter whiskey. Then he passed out on the floor of the bathroom.
The raccoon entered the ABC liquor store in Ashland, Va., through the ceiling early Saturday morning. “It wreaked havoc,” said Carol Mawyer, the public relations manager for Virginia ABC. “It broke several bottles and consumed the spirits.”
In addition to the rum, moonshine and peanut butter whiskey, the raccoon also got into some vodka and — seasonally appropriate! — eggnog.
If you have not tried it, peanut butter whiskey “is excellent,” Ms. Mawyer said. The raccoon apparently agreed.
Its entrance triggered the security system, which led the police and animal control to respond. An animal control officer found the raccoon facedown on the bathroom floor, placed it in a carrier and took it to a shelter.
Its hangover lasted about an hour and a half, said Chief Jeff Parker of Hanover County Animal Protection and Shelter. The raccoon awoke and had no apparent injuries. Except perhaps remorse.
It was safely released back into the wild.
How did his embarrassing bender become public?
Chief Parker said his department frequently deals with sick and injured raccoons, but this was something different.
“It was a little good humor,” he said. “I thought we ought to put that on social media. I had no idea it would go national or even worldwide. It’s fantastic. It’s cool.”
Raccoons are troublemakers.
They can be. They are such the bane of householders on garbage day that they have earned the nickname trash pandas.
But that’s nothing to the woman in Washington State who made the mistake last year of feeding a few friendly raccoons. More arrived until she was menaced by a mob of about 100 that aggressively demanded food. (The solution was to stop feeding them.)
Forgive my ignorance, but I didn’t know animals drank.
Some do, though with a little less intention than your embarrassingly boozy Great Uncle Dewey.
Birds for example, sometimes get crocked on fermented berries. Shrews in Malaysia like fermented palm nectar. A 1954 New York Times article reported on numerous cases of plastered animals, including this news fit to print: “Giger, a beer-drinking African parakeet, guzzled too much in a New York tavern, flew wild, and damaged $150 worth of bottled goods before A.S.P.C.A. agents finally captured him.”
And in Guinea, chimps sneak into villages, dip a folded leaf into cups of fermented sap gathered by people, and then lick the sap off. Sometimes they get social and do it with a friend.
So next time I raise a glass, I’ll invite an animal pal.
Don’t make it an elephant.
Oh it will join you all right. Elephants love a drink: Elephant trainers have given them port and beer since at least the 18th century. In 1974, more than 100 elephants broke into an Indian brewery, then launched on a drunken stampede.
Scientists say humans and some other primates metabolize ethanol, the key ingredient of alcohol, very quickly because of a mutation that occurred around 10 million years ago. Elephants do not. And that makes them drinking lightweights.
Sorry, Jumbo.
Victor Mather, who has been a reporter and editor at The Times for 25 years, covers sports and breaking news.
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