Sometimes, there’s a man — er, raccoon — that brings together society in a way that mere mortals cannot.
That man ringtailed bandit reared its head Thursday night in Toronto, bringing the Canadian city to a standstill, united by mourning, love, and acceptance.
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It all started innocently enough on Thursday, when a Toronto resident got on Twitter to tell the city’s services account that there was a dead raccoon on a downtown street, and it needed to be picked up:
The city got the message loud and clear, so all would be getting taken care of soon:
Well… no. The man updated hours later that the raccoon had still not been collected:
With the delay, a local politician picked up the story:
And a memorial began to grow for the poor raccoon:
By night fall, the raccoon still hadn’t been picked up, and the memorial had grown larger:
And thus, the hashtag #DeadRaccoonTO was spawned. Flowers gave way to candles as the night moved on, still with no sign of animal control:
The shrine kept growing, though not everyone understood why:
Finally, more than twelve hours later, city services came for the raccoon:
And then there was but a memory of the memorial:
Carry on, wherever you may be now, raccoon. Carry on.
[Image via Twitter.]