“A video just a few seconds long and accompanied by a simple question, ‘What am I looking at?’ was enough to turn a Seattle raccoon into a global internet sensation this week. The viral critter—dubbed ‘Jimothy’ by the internet—has a shorter spine than the average raccoon. His unusual appearance is likely the result of a congenital deformity in his spine.” — Oregon Public Broadcasting
It would seem I have become a minor celebrity on your information channels. It would also seem I have become something of an avatar for your collective longing for a better world, one that contains more whimsy and delight and less discord and horror. I am not immune to flattery, surely, but I regret to tell you that the weight of your longing is a bit much for my (apparently hilarious) abbreviated spine. I only have so many vertebrae, and they simply cannot carry your aspirations to fix whatever is wrong with you all, which, I further regret to tell you, is A LOT.
Put bluntly, you are, as a species, irretrievably fucked.
Given the dire nature of your condition, I’m not sure exactly what you think any raccoon, even a delightfully irregular one such as myself, is supposed to do about it. As a lifelong student of your detritus, I can tell you that the portrait that emerges from your trash cans is grim.
The wrappers of your preferred snack foods tell me you are self-soothing with highly-processed, chemical-laden junk that will lead to bodily issues far less charming than my own. I am not here to food-shame anybody, but I might gently suggest introducing a fruit or a protein-rich larva every now and then.
The packaging of your pharmaceutical goods—and there’s been quite an uptick—suggests that you’re having an increasingly difficult time dealing with your human emotions. It is perhaps not unrelated to the fact that the space between your households has grown annoyingly large, and the contents of your bins make it clear that you are dealing with these emotions in increasing physical isolation. Just last week I sorted through a pile of single-serving Stouffer’s toaster pizzas, airplane bottles, and prescription bottles that threatened to ruin even my generally sunny disposition.
Perhaps if you committed more time to interacting with one another without the intermediary of the screen on which I am so popular, you might feel better?
And look, I get it. The vanishingly few of you who still receive the news in print have supplied me with a pipeline to the goings-on in your world. Even a glance at the headlines on any given day is enough to send a fuzzy little basketball like me scurrying into the deepest woods. (Yes, we can read. If it helps to know, however, squirrels are illiterate, and rats… don’t get me started on the rats). No wonder so many of you give up halfway through the crossword. Also, the things some of you doodle in the margins give me… pause.
I am at a loss to explain what, if you’ll pardon the expression, the fuck is wrong with you people. You alone among the species seem to have found a way to override the main directive, which is, of course, to survive, and to have found increasingly elaborate ways of ensuring that you destroy yourselves. Which normally would be none of my business, except for the fact that you’re so likely to take so many of us down with you. Would you be less charmed by me if I turned to the camera and said, in my clumsy English: GET IT THE FUCK TOGETHER?
I don’t wish to be a scold. I’m happy that the absurd proportion of my legs to my body fills you with a dim echo of what you used to call joy. I would be thrilled if your delight at me helped to knit you together as a species, but if I’m a betting raccoon, I don’t love the odds. I’m sorry I cannot serve as a harbinger of better times, nor as a symbol of your better selves. I hope at least a few of you make some coins off the inevitable merch bearing my image. I expect I’ll see it in the trash by and by.
