by Jo Schaper

Never trust wily raccoons with a digital camera.

The last few weeks have been busy at the Traveler office–processing gift subscriptions, renewals, book orders, and working to organize and produce Missouri Guides and Outfitters for 2010. Office staff have been focused on the nuts and bolts of Traveler business, and we never noticed the digital camera was not in its usual ammo box until one morning Jo came in and found the computer on (AGAIN), muddy tracks on the desk (AGAIN) and the attached image on the desktop instead of the usual scatter of work folders.

No one claimed responsibility. Every raccoon in the place feigned winter sleep when she tried to ask questions, but apparently, on some weekend day, the rapscallions did a photo shoot in the parking lot. Yes, there is a stand-alone chimney in the parking lot. Our neighbors, C&J Stoneworks, builds them. Apparently on one of their nightly prowls, Trav got a bright idea and decided the ideal way to promote seasonal gift subscriptions was to entice a lady raccoon he knows to take his picture as Santa Raccoon.

How the raccoons obtained a Santa hat and green rucksack is not known. We can’t fault their choice of reading material. If they told us what they were up to, the human staff would likely agree to most of it. Instead, they like to surprise us, way too much.

If you’d like to encourage them, buy a gift subscription, or take a free, no obligation, 3-month trial. We hope their idea works. If it does, we’re going to make them help us enter subscriptions in the computer. After all, they’ve proven they’re capable of using it. How high can a raccoon count, anyway? Let’s find out!