Welcome back to another season of Kenyon College! I, for one, am very glad to be back, but would probably be a little bit gladder if the Craft Center were back in business. It looks like someone else is making use of the quasi-abandoned building, though….

I returned to the Craft Center in late August to hand in my badge and gun and gather my belongings. I entered the keypad access code to get into the pottery studio, and what I saw was a group of Kenyon’s favorite sewer dwellers, each at his own wheel. Of course, everyone knows raccoons are terrible creatures with humanoid hands and opposable thumbs, so this is very doable for them. I wasn’t even a little bit surprised, but I was pretty pissed off. How did they get the key code? Where did they get clay? One of them was even at the kiln. How dangerous! This was clearly an unregulated usage of the pottery studio, and they did NOT look happy to see me. One of them opened the garage door and fled as fast as I had seen them, their pieces abandoned at their wheels. Their work was objectively impressive, but I’ve seen better. I’ve seen much better, actually, in the pieces created by the real human pottery students of Kenyon College. The raccoons don’t stand a chance against us.

Can the raccoons help save the Craft Center? Probably not, they can’t speak, and they probably want to keep it to themselves anyway. Well, that sucks for them and I’m exposing them. The Craft Center should be open for the students of Kenyon College, not the vermin. As it stands, the Craft Center is a building frozen in time, with unfinished projects abounding. Don’t let the artistry and handiwork of Kenyon’s creative student body be taken over by pests! Save the Craft Center!

DISCLAIMER: There are not actually any raccoons in the Craft Center. Please don’t call animal control.