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Wednesday, January 16, 2013

POSSUMS IN DA HOUSE - Part I


POSSUMS IN DA HOUSE
 

Quick, name the ugliest animal on the Planet.  That’s right; hands down it is the Possum.  Beady eyes, ugly fur, long bald ratty tail, a pointy snout and scary looking needle sharp teeth; the possum is one ugly nasty looking creature. 

Possums are scarcely seen except at night which makes them even nastier.  Fortunately possums usually stay away from people.  They don’t particularly like people food; they don’t particularly like people homes.  That is why, on a Winters night, while watching Jay Leno on the “Tonight Show,” I was scared out of my wits when I looked up and saw a baby possum staring at me from the edge of our family room.

“What the Hell!”  I screamed reflexively, as the rodent looking marsupial scampered away and down the stairs to the basement.  My son Matt was living with us at the time and he came running downstairs to see what was wrong.  My wife did not wake up.  She was knocked out having spent several hours trying to get out newborn, Spencer, to sleep.

“What’s wrong?”

“There is a baby possum in the basement.” I responded somewhat dazed by fear and bewilderment.

Matt grabbed a broom, I took a mop and with my six foot phys-ed teacher son behind me I took two steps down into the basement when four baby possums ran up and through our legs.  Matt jumped up on a chair and squealed like a little girl, I jumped up and down and squealed because I had no chair to jump on.  Our Black Lab got all excited, woofed and ran in circles but was absolutely no help at all.

Two men, four baby possums and a clueless dog ran around the house all in a panicked attempt to get out of each other’s way.  I opened the back door and one baby possum ran out.  Matt opened the front door and another baby possum ran out.  Minnie “the Lab” trapped one in the closet that was apparently dead.  No…it was “playing possum.”  I nudged it with the mop and it sprang up snarling and showed those ugly needle sharp teeth.  More squealing!  The now very much alive possum started to climb up a heating pipe.  Matt knocked it down with his broom and it also ran out the front door.  The fourth possum retreated to the basement.  I closed the basement door.  The battle was over for this night.

Before I went to bed and tried to sleep, I put several large books over a hole in the baby's room so one of those suckers would not climb a pipe and enter Spencer's room.

I dared not tell my wife the next morning.

"I'm going to work now, bye, love you, have a nice day...oh...ah...stay out of the basement, we have a family of possums...bye." 

That would not fly.
 
My wife had anxiety attacks when I missed an exit on the Parkway.  I could not bring myself to tell her we had a family of snarling ugly possums in the basement.  And we only saw the babies; I knew there must be a momma somewhere. 

 

Almost 500 words…more than the average blog reader can handle so come back tomorrow for: 





Part II - Where’s Momma


16 comments:

  1. Nothing like a passel of varmints in the basement. That can really get one's attention! Happy hunting, Joeh!

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  2. That made me think of how I acted when a couple of squirrels came down the chimney....and squirrels aren't nearly as nasty, ugly as possums, and their mommas aren't near as big.

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  3. Ah, a cliff-hanger! I was under the delusion that possums were cute (I've never seen a real one), but that photo certainly cleared that up.

    Man, if there were creatures like that in my house I would freak OUT. Add a baby and I would have moved us all to a hotel until they'd been exterminated or decisively re-located. Hmm. I can see why you didn't tell your wife.

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  4. I'll be back to hear about mama. I have a feeling this isn't going to end well.

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  5. I think there was a picture of a possum in the dictionary under the word "ugly"! Yecchhh!!

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  6. I have two pretty fair possum stories in my repertoire. . .

    One was about a buddy of mine who was out in the woods during deer season. Middle of the woods, he comes across a dead deer carcass. It's been there a few days, 'cuz it's stinkin' pretty good. He's lookin' at the dead deer, shakin' his head that somebody had killed it, but hadn't been able to track it. When all of a sudden, this possum pokes its head out of the deer's a**hole, lookin' up at him like, 'Can I help you? I'm a little busy here.' Which, you know, tells you more about possums than you might've wanted to know. . .

    Another time, we were using a spring-loaded squirrel trap to round up stray cats in our neighborhood (it's a long story. . .) When we stopped getting cats and started getting possums, we figured we'd gotten all the cats we were gonna get. The Animal Control guys told us they wouldn't come to take a possum away, and suggested we just release 'em into the wild. Yeah, right; I'm gonna invest an hour of my time to drive this ugly, disgusting little thing out of town, and toss him on the side of the road, right? I don't think so. . .

    As an aside, I loved the way the possums would snarl and hiss at us when we came out to get 'em in the morning. I'd just look at 'em and laugh and say, 'Which one of us do you think caught the other one, eh, genius? You don't look so bad from inside that cage.'

    'Course, I was the one standin' there, talkin' to a possum. . .

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  7. I've never thought about the inside of a possum's mouth until recently seeing the picture of a NZ possum in a trap. Nasty, nasty, overgrown, no natural enemy. Anyway, the teeth in your possum picture give me the willies. Waiting for the catch....

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  8. They're not the prettiest, true. I can imagine how upsetting their presence was. I once had a mama raccoon come through my bedroom ceiling so I know the feeling of wanting them out. I've loved raccoons dearly since that day. I suspect that didn't happen with you and possums. ;)

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  9. You and your stories never cease to amaze me Joe.

    Based on your opening line I thought this was going to be some sort of Nancy Pelosi bit. Haha! ;)

    S

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  10. Yikes! I would leave mama in the basement, lol!!

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  11. Never saw one and never want to be near one...those are some nasty ass looking things

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  12. Oh the good old days. Possums, crazy woman sleeping, baby, a useless black bitch, and two grown men 6' 190 lbs scarred of all of the afore mentioned.

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  13. Omg those things give the creepy crawlies... Can't wait to read the rest!

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  14. I had no idea possums looked so evil. The ones in the cartoons come across as a long-nosed pandas all cute and fuzzy. Waiting on a chair with a broom for the rest of the story.

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  15. Ugh on the possums in the house. I had a panic attack over a mouse in the house, I don't want to think about anything bigger than a mouse.

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