The California Highway Patrol had something of an identity crisis yesterday in Oakland. The CHP was getting calls yesterday afternoon about a dead kangaroo on I-580 near the Oakland Zoo.
After officers arrived on scene, they discovered something must more mundane. CHP Oakland said on twitter that callers had been exaggerating a bit. According to their twitter account, what the CHP found was actually "an enormous raccoon."
The absurd situation coupled with @CHPOakland's dry responses helped the tweet quickly go viral. The Internet jumped on it, wanting a bit more clarification and photos of said dead raccoon.
The Oakland A's wanted to know if the raccoon was available to throw out a ceremonial first pitch.
And of course, there were plenty of gifs and memes to go around.