What Jimothy the Raccoon Reveals About Seattle

What does it take to reveal a contradiction? In at least one case, it is a deformed raccoon sashaying across Seattle, delightfully unbothered.

If you make your home somewhere deep under a rock, I am referring to Jimothy—who else?—the feral hunchback whose viral sightings have injected a ray of sunshine into the land of perpetual drizzle, and also across the globe. What is it about him? Or her? Or them? There may be multiple Jimothys, after all: other little trash pandas likely afflicted with short spine syndrome, giving her/him/them the rounded back that has captured the attention and affection of many.

But it need not matter, because Jimothy is an idea—a symbol of being unapologetically different and free, despite dealing with similar setbacks as, say, Quasimodo (who was, unfortunately, locked in a bell tower).

“I think he’s an example to all of us that you don’t have to be perfect to be loved,” said Seattle City Councilmember Alexis Mercedes Rinck, who also announced that the city would present a proclamation in his honor this weekend. “It is a dream of mine to encounter Jimothy in real life and then keep my measured distance from him so he can live his good little life.”

Ah, Seattle. A city most known for its lawmakers keeping their measured distance and letting their constituents live their good little lives.

Shall we walk—scamper, Jimothy-style—down memory lane? Let’s. In 2018, Seattle officially outlawed single-use plastic straws and utensils. That was a groundbreaking move at the time, and it was very expensive for businesses to comply. It also meant that many residents and visitors trying to live their good little lives across Seattle have felt straws disintegrate in their mouths as their drink transforms into a concoction of coffee and paper. Is that how we should honor the hometown of Starbucks?

And the rents. Oh, the rents. Seattle’s notoriously constrictive zoning rules prohibit anything but single-family homes from being built in the majority of the city. Which means to live your good little life there, you will probably pay a big, bad rent. Jimothy, thankfully, is living in many of our heads rent-free. I charge him nothing.

That’s not to say lawmakers aren’t trying to help. The city’s recent sky-high minimum wage for delivery drivers was, in theory, supposed to give a raise to some in the working class. Instead, driver earnings reportedly plunged as the increased expense associated with using delivery apps saw orders fall off a cliff. “I believe we created a problem, and it’s our responsibility to fix it,” conceded Sara Nelson, then the president of the Seattle City Council. The introspection is refreshing. But the government still has not fixed it after lawmakers decidedly did not keep their measured distance.

Hot Jimothy summer will come to an end. People’s attention spans are short. But it may be hard to forget him, at least for a time, when considering what he has already left behind: a raft of paintings, tattoos (a choice), mosaics, and more. So Jimothy will remain. He has become a mascot for freedom—for defiantly living a good little life—in a city too often hostile to that very thing.

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