A bobcat, a racoon, & a rabbit

My sister & I live about 25 hours away from each other. She works during the day, & in the evenings & on weekends, we are both pretty busy. We call each other several times a month, but it always seems that one of us is busy & the call is brief. But every two months or so, she will call me around 9:30 pm, after her kids are in bed & we will chat into the wee hours of the night. She called last night & we talked about everything sisters do. Around midnight, we were both getting pretty tired, but enjoying the conversation so much, we kept talking. The subject of remodeling came up. Her husband is a contractor & has been working on his mom's home. We were talking about window replacement, the suddenly Jen switched the subject to putting in a sidewalk. It was late & she was rambling a bit & I was kind of drifting a bit. All the sudden, she says,
"Yeah, & our friend Dean came over last weekend & brought his bobcat. You know what that is right? It's a smaller version of a...."
And I said the first thing that popped into my head, "A tiger?"
She started cracking up & said "No! It's a small tractor!" Maybe it was late, but we were both giggling so hard, it took us 5 minutes to calm down & both of us were worried that we wake up everyone.
So after we calmed down, the conversation went to more serious subjects. Apparently, she had stepped outside onto her porch when she was laughing so hard. We were talking quite seriously, when all the sudden, she says, "Mel, there is a raccoon on my porch."
I'm thinking (again, remember it's almost 1 am) that she is just trying to lighten the mood, and I say, "Oh, is that another kind of tractor?" and start giggling again.
She says, "No! It's a real live Raccoon Mel & it's eating my cat's food!"
"Like an animal, raccoon?" I said, still not registering.
"YES! And now it is looking straight at me, & my cat is hissing & growling at it!"
I tell her to shut her window, thinking she is in her house & she tells me she is on the porch & is afraid to move. The cat is screeching & Jen is feeling more panic. I don't know what to do, so I call for Steve in an alarmed voice. He comes stumbling out of the bedroom, half awake. Apparently my giggling fit had woke him up earlier. I tell him there is a raccoon on Jen's porch. He tells me to ask her if the raccoon is rabid. She misunderstands me.
"Mel, it is not a RABBIT, it is a RACCOON!" She shreiks. I hand Steve the phone & while talking to him, the cat scared off the raccoon. As soon as Steve handed the phone to me, we laughed for another 10 minutes! Finally, around 1:30 am, we hung up!