Twenty-seven and the raccoon

Yes, I said raccoon. Now, I am not talking about the time we had a lockdown because there was a bear in the (heavily populated and very urban city) neighborhood, because that bear was clearly lost and I felt for it, but the time we evacuated the building because of a HUGE raccoon.

One morning before we had even started school, we got a Code Yellow announcement over the intercom system. Obviously, a Code Red is bad, but it was a Code Yellow which meant we needed to evacuate. Come to think of it Code Yellow isn’t much better sounding than Code Red but at least it wasn’t a lockdown situation while students were outside on the playground.

So, Code Yellow!

We evacuated the building but weren’t to use the back stairwells. No problem. The front and side stairwells were fine, so we left and then we were all standing outside, still not knowing what was going on. The teachers were getting the kids in line like it was a normal school day, but kept getting shooed away from the back of the building.

Finally, someone said there was a giant raccoon that had snuck in the building somehow and had hidden under the back stairs until poor Twenty-seven had come in early to meet a teacher and was unpleasantly surprised to be sharing the space with what must have appeared to him to be a massive and dangerous creature. I don’t remember what twenty-seven did to alert someone, but I do remember him telling the story, which spread like wildfire of course, about running in to our own little Rocky Raccoon in the early morning hours and how shocked he had been. Twenty-seven was a great storyteller and wasn’t embarrassed to have been startled, so he told the story with a good sense of humor. Which, of course, made the story even better. Before long, teachers and students were laughing about our little visitor instead of grumbling about standing around outside.

What did I learn? Aside from ‘don’t leave the doors on the bottom floor open at night when you go to take out the trash’, I learned that sometimes embarrassing things will happen and you’ll scream like a tiny child. Sometimes you’ll run into something that feels dangerous, or even is dangerous. But if you try to keep your cool, you’ll find a way out and you might even end up with a good story out of it.

Why does that matter? Think about how many times we’ve felt embarrassed and reacted to the situation badly. We under responded, over responded, didn’t respond, or even physically left the space. Imagine the difference if we could all learn from Twenty-seven and turn something we’ve experienced that we aren’t thrilled by, into something manageable. Or even better, turn it into something funny. Now, when I think back, I don’t think that I fully understood this lesson that morning. Which is another thing to remember. Sometimes, when things come up unexpectedly, it might take a while to adjust and figure out what you can learn from it. Not every lesson is going to be easy to learn, and some may not even be easy to find. Thank you for helping me learn that so many years later, Twenty-seven. I truly appreciate it.