Don’t text while driving. Don’t facebook while driving. And don’t check internet web pages while driving…unless of course it’s cartoon raccoon related…in which case you still shouldn’t internet while driving…but at least you’re looking at a quality website.

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Sometimes, no matter how convincing your friends might be, certain things just seem like a bad idea. Probably best to trust your gut on that one.

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Have a very happy Independence Day!!

~Matt

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Ok. It’s true. I admit it. I AM trying to take over the world.

We’re getting there. Slowly but surely. One cartoon at a time I’m carefully gaining territory, until finally that fateful and glorious day will arrive and I will rule mightily from my cartoon-raccoon empire. HA! HAHAHAHAHAHAA!!

But don’t worry. I will be a kind and just ruler. I will rule over you all with dignity and grace. You will find yourselves wondering why you didn’t all elect me to be your supreme ruler eons ago. And I will make the world so much better with my policies.

Here’s just a few:

• We won’t need to pay so many taxes because you won’t have to pay so many high government salaries. Just mine. And mine is pretty reasonable compared to the sums of all those politicians. Just sayin’.

• Opening Day for baseball will be a world holiday. Duh.

• I will save the Twinkies. But you are only allowed to buy them if you walk to the store. Fair and just.

• Veronica Mars will be immediately brought back to regular television. I’m also going to bring back Firefly, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Chuck, and while we’re at it, Lois and Clark, The New Adventures of Superman. Two and a Half Men will be immediately cancelled. Because we’re better than that. We’re all better than that.

• I will expedite the completion and mass production of driver-less vehicles.

• I will outlaw the usage of “LOL.”

• Minors will only be allowed internet access via 56 Kbps dial up modem. Because quite frankly, we’re all tried of the stupid overly dramatic teenage crud you post online all the time.

• Michael Bay will be exiled to a remote island off the coast of Greenland. For he must pay for his sins.

• No more reality TV. Ever.

• I will protect the Guam Kingfisher.

• Raw milk will once again be available at every corner grocery store.

• Finally, I will abolish the biannual changing of the clocks. Daylight savings time will be the new standard time all year long baby. That’s the way I roll.

You, my loyal and trusted peasants, will all learn to love me as I rule over you with wisdom and cartoon goodness. I will usher in a brand new era of peace, longevity, and quality television. You’re welcome. Long live Matt, supreme ruler.

The post Maybe appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Once upon a time, I used poor judgement. I know that may come as a shock to many of you on account of my excellent and spotless record over the years -cough- but I must confess, I have not always been the exemplary pillar of valor that I am today.

It all went down in the 3rd grade. 3rd grade was a weird year you see. The teacher to which I had been assigned was on maternity leave. As a result, the teaching responsibilities for all of the 3rd grade classes were divided up between a host of different teachers. When it finally became obvious to everyone that the absent teacher was enjoying her maternity leave far more than originally anticipated and would NOT be returning to her teaching duties at any point during the school year, the district finally got their act together and hired an additional teacher. The result, was Miss Brooks.

Miss Brooks was young. Likely the youngest teacher at our elementary school. Her figure was thin and attractive which set her apart from all of the other elementary school teachers. She wore her hair in a pony tail that whipped around whenever she turned her head. In truth, Miss Brooks was kind of hot. I desperately wanted her to like me.

But instead, she hated my guts.

Before I plead my case, let me first explain that as an elementary school student, I was a really good kid. I’m not being clever or sarcastic this time. I WAS a REALLY good kid. I was quiet and good-natured. I never got in trouble. I got along with most everyone. Boys liked me because I knew a lot about baseball. Girls liked me because I could draw and didn’t say bad words. I always raised my hand. I was a good kid. I can provide character witnesses if need be.

But for reasons that still baffle me to this day, Miss Brooks hated my guts. She began her tenure by instructing some of the classes on Fridays. Every week I tried so very hard to please this beautiful and attractive women. And yet, she always treated me with harshness. Her responses to my questions were cold. Her patience continually wore thin with me. My trademark Matt Taylor charm was rendered useless on her. More than once I found her muttering unkind epithets about me under her breath. I couldn’t understand it. I was a good kid! I KNEW I was a good kid! Teachers always liked me! How could this teacher not like me?? I felt like she had somehow gotten the wrong idea about me and I was continuously trying to prove to her the kind of student that I was.

But no matter how hard I tried, this young and vivacious teacher persisted to hate me. I suppose now that I’m older I shouldn’t be surprised that a beautiful and attractive women was capable of treating someone with such disdain for no particular reason, but as a young 3rd grader I had not as of yet experienced these things and it was the source of much anxiety in my young and troubled 3rd grade life.

And then one dark and fateful day, there was the incident…and any remaining hope of moving into the graces of this young and vibrant teacher were forever destroyed.

On that particular Friday, our school had been invited to attend the local theater to see a play. These field trips were always welcome distractions. We would board the school buses and make our way across our little town and watch whatever performance was being displayed for our amusement.

As we piled into the noisy theater I took a seat next to a fellow classmate and we anxiously awaited the beginning of the performance. But before the house lights dimmed, Miss Brooks walked by. With her evil and twisted glare she looked at me and the classmate to my right.

“You must remove your hats inside the theater,” she exclaimed.

Politely, we protested. No other teacher had ever made us remove our baseball caps in the theater before. We had been attending these plays for 3 years! She had been at the school for nothing more than a few weeks!

She insisted. We pointed to the literally COUNTLESS other boys in the theater who were wearing baseball caps. To make matters perfectly clear, this was immediately following the year in which BOTH of the professional baseball teams in our area went to the World Series. As a result, literally EVERY boy came to school wearing a baseball cap.

But she didn’t care about what all the other kids were wearing. We would remove our hats, or she would remove them for us.

Begrudgingly, we removed our beloved baseball caps and set them on our laps. Proudly, Miss Brooks marched down the aisle like some kind of baseball hating hat-nazi and sat at the other side of the theater.

Let me pause here for just a moment to reiterate something that should already be clear to you. 3rd grade boys wear baseball caps. They wear them everyday. And a boy’s baseball cap is his identity. It’s like his soul. You don’t ask a boy to remove his soul.

And so like clockwork, as the play was about to begin the theater lights dimmed. And when the room was dark, each and every one of us took our baseball caps from off our laps, and placed them proudly upon our heads once more. It was not an act of defiance. It was an act of honor.

When the play ended the lights came on. Miss Brooks immediately walked in my direction. We had removed our hats once the lights had come back on, but it was to no avail. Miss Brooks snatched the hats from our grasp.

“I saw you put your hats back on as soon as it was dark! You’ll have to get these from me later!”

Words do not express the horror of the situation. Even now, the very thought of that abrasive woman stealing my beloved Giants hat away from me causes me to tremble. It was truly traumatizing. I should probably seek therapy.

For the rest of the day I had to endure a hat-less day of misery and hat-hair. My identity was missing. My soul was lost.

I waited anxiously through the course of the day. I thought for sure she would eventually return my hat to me. But the end of the day arrived, and my head remained bare. I saw no other recourse, but do timidly approach Miss Brooks after school and ask for my hat.

Terrified, I arrived at the classroom. She opened the door, her cold, icy stare piercing my poor child-like frame. With all the 3rd-grade humility I could muster I asked for my hat to be restored.

Blatantly, the woman refused.

I pleaded for her to see reason.

With a sort of twisted sense of satisfaction glowing deep within those burning, vengeful eyes, she refused again. My hat would remain in her custody over the entire weekend, and perhaps longer, until she saw fit.

The thought of being without my hat for a whole weekend or perhaps longer sent me into a frenzy. Frantically, I searched my mind for a way to restore my beloved baseball cap. I saw no answers. I saw no appeal to reason. There were no amount of pleasantries or charm that would melt this woman’s complete and utter hatred for me. It was at this darkest moment, when I was left completely without options, that I did something that I am not especially proud of. I hope that you will not judge me too harshly considering the nature of these circumstances.

As she stared at me with all of her bitter spite and animosity, I realized there was only one thing I could do…

I admit it. I pretended to cry.

Never before had I managed to command a well of tears so quickly and in such abundance. The waterworks poured over my face with tears streaming from my eyes like torrential rain. I knew what I was doing was wrong. But this was the only answer to her injustice. My hat—my identity, my very soul, was on the line.

Panicked, Miss Brooks ran into the classroom. In a sort of exasperated and reluctant huff, she thrust my beloved hat into my hands with a mixture of anger and fear.

“Fine. Here’s your hat.”

I still remember the moment in which I held my baseball cap in my arms once more. It seemed to emanate love and admiration for my sacrifice in its behalf. I felt as if I had been reunited with a long lost friend. I was myself again. I was whole.

Tearfully, I offered the sincerest “thank you” to Miss Brooks that I could. But in truth, it was all an act. No longer was I trying to seek this woman’s approval. Inside I was mocking her. Laughing that she had believed my performance. What an actor I must be! When at last I had my hat, I turned from her classroom and placed it proudly on my head. I wiped the crocodile tears from my face and literally laughed to myself as I walked away, a devious grin stretching across my face.

“Hahaha!” I laughed under my breath, so that she wouldn’t hear as I walked proudly across campus. “Stupid fool.”

I plead guilty your honor. I throw myself upon the mercy of the court.

The post Poor Judgement appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

What time is it? It’s waffle time! Oh how I love those sweet, sweet, toaster waffles. I am being completely serious when I say that from the year 1993 to the year 2003, I ate two Eggo waffles for breakfast every morning. Just to be clear, I literally mean EVERY. MORNING. One would think that you could get sick of Eggo waffles, but in that 10-year period, they were the most glorious and wondrous way to start my day.

I still regularly eat them. There’s nothing quite like a good toaster waffle. Their delicious aroma as they gently crisp in the toaster. The sweet, savory, maple syrup being poured over them. The hearty glass of milk awaiting you when you’ve finished that last bite of waffle. Mmmmmmm…

I always have to have my waffles. Once while I was working overseas out in the pacific islands I was living on the tiny island of Yap. Yes. That is a real place, and it’s awesome. Yap had one major grocery store on the island. And by “major” I really mean “incredibly tiny.” There were no waffles in the store, but there were rumors of waffles in frozen yellow boxes having made their way to the island before. So I went to the girl behind the counter and tried to explain the glory that is frozen toaster waffles. She insisted that she could indeed get them to the island. I was skeptical, but allowed myself to hope. Oh how I needed my waffles.

4-6 weeks later the little store’s freezer was completely stocked with Eggo waffles. They didn’t just order a few boxes. They ordered a ridiculous mount of boxes. I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many boxes of frozen toaster waffles all at once.

I bought them all.

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Have you ever had one of those jobs that punished you for being efficient? Have you ever worked in a place that stifled your passions and your skill? I have.

Once upon a time I had a job (yes, I know that comes as a surprise to many of you). And I was pretty darn good at that job too. Alright. I’m going to put my modesty on hold for just a moment… I was AMAZING at that job.

But just like any other job that we’re amazing at, there were bosses that were…well…not so amazing.

At this particular time of my employment, my supervisors were especially concerned about money. So much in fact, that they were going to pinch pennies wherever they could, particularly in our paychecks. It all began with my immediate supervisor, who had a penchant for being…how do I phrase it…”extraordinarily attentive to detail.”

He thought it was a bright idea to keep a detailed log of my hours worked. Since we were responsible for reporting our own hours, I felt as though my integrity was being called into question. So being the exceptionally honest young man that I am, I decided to fill my time cards down to the exact minute that I was clocking in and out.

It was really quite grand. I utilized all of my high school math knowledge to record every minute of every day and every fraction of every cent I was on the clock. Obviously it was the honest thing to do, and proving a point to my director had absolutely nothing to do with it. Obviously.

That little experiment lasted about a two or three pay periods before my supervisor had to expressly tell me to round to the nearest 15min. He never bothered to record my hours after that. Success.

Only a couple years later however, a new supervisor was making the rounds. This one was new at her job, and had decided that in order for her to keep her new position, she was going to have to find ways to cut costs and save lots and lots of money. Considering how good she was at her job, she was probably right…

And so came the mandate concerning overtime hours. We were asked to avoid exceeding our weekly allotment of hours no matter the consequence. We must save money. Never mind that it was at this exact moment that my coworkers and I were bringing in more revenue than ever before. Didn’t matter. We must keep our hours to a minimum. No matter the cost.

Well, funny thing about that job. In order to keep our operating licence for our site, we were required to have a certain number of employees on site at all times. And due to the desperate frenzy to cut costs, additional workers were never hired. So we were left with an interesting choice to make.

Do we:

A.) Work the hours needed to abide by our state laws and regulations?

B.) Leave work and risk losing our licence for the sake of limiting our weekly quota of hours?

C.) Runaway screaming like a helpless child?

D.) All of the above.

Needless to say, I and my coworkers chose the one that was required by state law. And our bosses seemed to tolerate that choice. Or so I thought. Until the time came to fill out my time card.

The official word came down. Nobody was to report any hours that surpassed the maximum number for either the daily or weekly hours of a full-time employee. There would be no overtime hours. None. Time-and-half would not be tolerated.

Yes, that’s right. I was specifically asked to lie on my time card so that I wouldn’t be paid as much money.

I wish this was one of my literary exaggerations. I wish this was a clever retelling of the way I interpreted past events. But that wasn’t the case. I was clearly told to report fewer hours than I had worked, so that I would be paid less money.

Needless to say (being the young man of integrity that I am), I was not going to submit to this particular order. I was not going to lie, nor was I going to do so so that I could receive less than the wages I had earned.

I mean really…was I the only one that saw the complete absurdity of this? Was I the only one that saw the rights and freedoms of my young and naive coworkers being manipulated and trampled upon by bosses who were clearly trying to remain in the good graces of the higher ups and serve their own career paths?

And so, I refused. Not only that, but I encouraged my coworkers to report nothing less than the hours they had worked.

I spoke with two different supervisors that day, until finally I was informed that the head honcho herself would be calling me to “discuss” this apparent issue. Frankly I didn’t see anything that needed to be discussed. I worked. I reported. Now pay up.

The phone call came, and my very false and patronizing supervisor questioned me about what the “problem” was. Knowing she could do nothing else but submit to federal law, she agreed that “of course we would NEVER ask you to LIE on your time card!” She was however, betrayed by the reverberation in her voice vacillating between false sympathies and antagonistic frustration.

Feeling much like Jimmy Hoffa, I stated in no uncertain terms that I would report my hours as I worked them, and that the company would pay my overtime hours, as well as the hours of my coworkers. My boss could do nothing but [reluctantly] agree. And so the phone call ended, without my ever really knowing what needed to be “discussed.”

It should come as no surprise, that I chose not to stay at that job much longer.

The post Too Efficient appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

You know what? Your system IS dumb. I’m a little sick of it. I went to grade school. I went to Junior High and High School. I was told I NEEDED to go to college because you just can’t make a decent living without a college degree. So I went to college. And when I got to college I was told I had to take this class, and that class, and fulfill this requirement, and spend a ton of money on these books that I would never actually read or even open.

Well I did all that. And after a few years and tens of thousands of dollars later I walked out of college with a fancy piece of paper and a couple of letters to put on my resume. And guess what? I’m still making the same amount of money as I was making before college. The only difference is there is a heck of a lot less money in my bank account after spending so much money on a college “education.”

So I’m here to tell you that your system is dumb. Your system is broken. The system has effectively drained my financial resources all while keeping me out of the work force for that much longer. So not only am I broke, but I also don’t have as many years of work experience in my related fields. So yeah. Thanks a lot for that academia. At least I learned how to write really witty essays and get perfect scores on them in my college English classes. Oh wait…all those essays I wrote were actually ones I reused from high school…

The post Your System Is Dumb appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Ah the joys of office work. I’ve been there. You’ve been there. In fact, a lot of you are there right now. At this very moment. Clinging desperately to this distraction and any other you can find before you return with sorrow to your world of absolute mind-numbing labor and tedious job descriptions. And you sit there and wonder…why on earth did you need an expensive college degree to qualify you to sit in a monochrome office on your duff all day long while you get older and fatter?

Yup. I’ve been there. And I feel your pain.

I’ve had the job where I sit at a desk and push the same buttons over and over again. I’ve been the guy who sits and watches the clock anxiously while waiting for other people to go home so I’m not the first person to leave the office. And you know what?? They never go home. They never go home! WHY WON’T THEY EVER JUST GO HOME?!?!

Ok. Breath. We’re ok.

I don’t mean to depress you. I just want you to know that I’m behind you. A large portion of my readers visit my site from their office jobs. And so in some small way, I feel that they come to me to keep them sane in a world of spreadsheets, paper jams, and that guy who talks really loud whenever he answers a phone call.

I salute you. You, the white-collared workers who painstakingly endure yet another torturous day at the office. You are the glue that holds society together. The backbone of our fragile economy. And…you also happen to be the spike in my website traffic every week…

And so, I feel responsible for your well being. It’s up to me. It is my solemn duty to prevent you from snapping in your cubicle and burning down your office in a frenzy of complete and utter madness. Lose yourself in a world of raccoon cartoons, and snarky and opinionated writings. I will talk you down. You can depend on me. I will get you through another few minutes of your otherwise monotonousness existence. Come with me if you want to live.

The post Button Pushing appeared first on Raccoon Toons.

Is it just me, or is Halloween becoming less of a holiday for the kids, and more of a holiday for scantily clad sorority girls? I’m not going to turn this into a rant about current trends in women’s costumes. But I will say this: Underwear ≠ Costume. I mean seriously. I’m as attracted to beautiful women as the next guy, but that’s just not very creative. C’mon girls, you can do better.

But let’s be honest and realistic here. When you dress like a dumb floozy*, I’m going to assume you’re a dumb floozy. And when you walk around in your underwear and think it qualifies as a costume, I don’t just think you’re a dumb floozy, I know you’re a dumb floozy.

What on earth could you possibly be dressing “up” as when you’re practically naked? I suppose it’s possible that in this scenario your Halloween costume is in fact, a dumb floozy…but if that’s the case…you really aren’t just pretending…

* (The word “floozy” was substituted for a number of other possible less kid-friendly choices. Take your pick.)

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