Here's a situation, for thought:
You awake to find yourself in the confinements of a drained pool. It looks clean and aside from a well used push-broom, you're definitely the only resident of the deep end. 10 feet of sloped concrete does not make for an easy exit. In fact, without rope or a minimum 40" vertical (and a running start), shit's impossible. The only exit is to go from deep to shallow and climb the ladder to steady ground. It's dark, with a dash of light and from your spot below the surface dawn vs. dusk isn't exactly distinguishable. What IS (at least) semi-distinguishable, in your line of sight, is a stirring group of critters. Milling about, the unidentified creatures's territory lies just before the point of the pool you've decided you could climb out at. Vision adjusted, the unidentified have been identified as a pack of not-so-happy-to-be-in-the-empty-pool raccoons. Two look to be the size of well fed housecats, three others look as if they've dined on the finest of fine trash for the better part of their lives and could register 30 pounds, if a scale were on hand. Rounding out the group are what you presume are young ones, maybe adolescents; three of them.
Snarl, snarl, gnash, gnash.
They're angry, hell maybe even thirsty for man blood (fuck if you know). Point is… this group of 8 raccoons will not allow you passage.
How do you escape and how long will it take?
My man cBase, when in this situation, quoted a raccoon massacre that took no longer than 7 seconds, thanks to the expert like wielding of a skewerin' pole that had once been a push-broom. Not to mention a good deal of fortune. My personal approach includes a brutal dispatching of the raccoon I've deemed the biggest and nastiest bugger of the bunch… followed by intimidation and finger pointing. Depending on the effectiveness of this plan, I'd say I need no longer than 3 minutes.
