There’s drunk, and then there’s “broke into a locked Virginia liquor store and passed out in the bathroom” drunk. And that’s exactly what one raccoon managed to pull off in Ashland, reminding all of us that nature has absolutely no respect for closing hours or inventory management.
The store was shut tight, lights off, and the kind of quiet you get in small towns after dinner. Then a raccoon — apparently fueled by curiosity and terrible judgment — ripped its way into the ABC store like it had a personal vendetta against shelving units. Workers showed up to find bottles knocked over, broken glass scattered across the floor, and one furry suspect nowhere to be seen. At first.
The real surprise waited in the back.
Inside the bathroom, stretched out like a college freshman who couldn’t handle their first tailgate party, was the raccoon. Unconscious. Full-on “I regret everything” mode.
Animal control showed up, took one look, and reportedly said it needed “a few hours to sober up.” That’s professional code for: this little guy hit the sauce hard.
And look, anyone who’s spent time in retail knows customers can get weird, but even the most seasoned store manager isn’t prepared for a blackout raccoon curled up on the tile like it owns the place. I’ve seen radio DJs pass out in stranger spots — there was a morning show intern once who fell asleep behind the transmitter racks — but you still don’t expect a woodland creature to polish off the bourbon section.
What got me laughing isn’t just the chaos. It’s the human part of this: the impulse to clean up, check security footage, get quotes, call it in… meanwhile the raccoon is face-down, sleeping off a night that apparently went way too hard. There’s something weirdly relatable there.
Few things unite Americans like a good animal mess story.
Animal control eventually released the raccoon back into the wild, probably with a pounding headache and a shaky promise to “never do this again.” We’ve all been there. Some of us at Applebee’s, some of us at weddings, one raccoon in a government-regulated liquor outlet.
I’ll say this: If you’re the type of person who believes wild animals are losing their fear of humans, you’re right — and the evidence is asleep in a bathroom stall.