Lifeguards of reddit, what's your best story?

I worked at a pool in a small rural Ohio town. The pool was surrounded on three sides by a nature reserve-- it was in the woods, with a big fence going around the whole thing. At night, we were frequently visited by raccoons, which would raid the dumpsters. Raccoons have an interesting habit: they like to wash their food before they eat it. The pool was covered with plastic solar covers, so they didn't wash it in there. They would climb up the walls of the clubhouse, get in through gaps between the walls and the roof, climb down the waste vent pipe, and wash their food in the toilets.

We hated this. We would come in first thing in the morning and find muddy little raccoon footprints and garbage remnants all over the bathrooms, and we would have to clean the whole place with bleach before 8am swim lessons showed up.

So one night, our buddy stays late and stakes things out with a BB gun. He actually shoots a raccoon. It flees and there is no sign of it. Next morning, we come in to open up the pool, and there's a dead raccoon. We realize we need to dispose of the body. Someone grabs a shovel, scoops it up, and hurls it over the fence into the woods. We think the ordeal is over.

It is not. It's summer in Ohio. 90 degrees F and 90 percent humidity, and a few days later that fucker stinks to high heavens from 30 feet away over the fence. Patrons start complaining of the smell. We decide that something must be done.

We draw straws. The loser must go retrieve the dead raccoon and bury it. Our buddy Dustin loses. It's a Saturday, there are no swim lessons. The pool doesn't open until noon. We have 3 hours. Jokingly, Dusty dons a trash bag with arm and head holes cut in it. He puts on rubber gloves and one of the dust masks that we use for putting DE powder on the filters. He grabs a shovel and goes over the fence.

Dusty stomps through the brush to approach the dead raccoon. He decides maybe he won't bury it. Maybe he'll just grab it by the base of the tail and fling it further into the woods where no one can smell it from the pool.

Dusty gets a great surprise. He reaches down, grips the tail, and comes up with a handful of putrid, rotten, half-liquid raccoon flesh and fur in his right hand. The raccoon is still on the ground, rotten body and the now bare tail bone sticking off of it. Dusty's face turns green, his eyes get huge, and he immediately retches. He is horrified. We are horrified. There's no turning back, this deed must be done. Dusty has to finish it. He digs a hole, buries our poor stinky buddy, and returns from the ordeal to take a shower.

The next morning, the bathroom is still covered in raccoon shit. It was all for naught.

/r/AskReddit Thread