They had a front blow through Tulsa recently and it brought some much needed rain and really greened everything up. Mom loves animals of all varieties, and spends hours sitting on the patio watching butterflies and bunnies and hummingbirds frolicking amongst the trees, but this week she had a wild animal encounter of a new variety.
One morning just after all the rain came, she took a bag of trash out to the outdoor cans stored at the side of her house. When she lifted the can lid, she saw what was, in her words, "the ugliest, most bedraggled, pathetic-looking animal I've ever seen." Sitting at the bottom of the can, in two inches of garbage and rainwater, was a large possum. It was soaking wet, and so motionless that she thought it was probably dead. It didn't react at all to the lid being removed. She tipped the can and let the water run out, and then rattled the can to try to roust it out, but it just lay there, limp as a noodle. Her heart was broken, and naturally, she became determined to save the poor possum.
She went inside and got a big plate of cat food and set it outside the tipped can. She read on the internet about what possums eat (anything and everything) so she also put a pile of fruits and vegetables out near the cat food. She was heartbroken when the possum didn't move a hair, and showed no interest at all in the banquet she'd laid out. She decided it must be sick or dying, but she went back to her computer to read up more on the world of possums.
As soon as she began to read in depth, she had one of those "DUH!" moments! As we all learned as little kids, when possums are threatened, what do they do? Well of course, THEY PLAY POSSUM!! As soon as she made the connection, she ran back outside, and you can guess it: the cat food was gone, the "possum salad" was gone, and most of all, the possum was gone!
On that day, in that place in Tulsa, Oklahoma, it was a good day to be a possum.
5 comments:
haha. Your story reminded me of a story Tracee wrote about a possum experience that either she or her sister I had.
I wish she'd tell it again. As I recall, I Really LOL.
I wanna hear about your trip!!
when we lived on a farm the possums would come and eat with the farm cats on a nightly basis. it was not an unfamiliar site for them to be lined up with the cats eating to their hearts content.
my in-laws were walking through rock creek park earlier this week(think chandra levy's body) when a screaming woman came running down the path. Apparently a rabid fox had attacked her family while they were hiking and they needed help. My MIL called 911 on her old lady cell phone (the one with the GIANT buttons) and helped the authorities navigate to the family. for being unlucky, they're lucky that they got my MIL on a good day. Some days she can't remember her own phone number, muchless 911.
That is why I bring in the cat food every night. If I didn't we'd have possums and raccoon dining al fresco at midnight.
http://awkwardfamilyphotos.com/2009/08/21/spic-and-span/
Back in high school, I was in the band practicing marching after school one day, when one of the people who would always hang out in the stands watching us found a possum. It looked 100% dead, so he chucked it in the trash barrel, and we went about our practice. About 10 minutes later, someone yelled, "hey, look!"; the formerly dead possum was now perched on top of the trash barrel, glaring at us. And every single one of us KNEW about possums 'playing possum'; it's just that the thing looked so dead at first that it did not occur to any of us.
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