About midnight last night, Pip the dog had to go out. Not sure why — she had been out at 11. Maybe she heard something? Who knows. All I know is that I let her out and waited for her to do her business.
She did her business alright. I heard her raising hell one bark at a time.
I ran in and got my phone (my source of a flashlight) and found her attacking a juvenile opossum. It was tucked into a corner of our fence, hissing and standing on a soccer ball. Of course, my first thought was “Aw, it wants to play a pick-up game of soccer with Pip,” and then I thought, “Chris McDaniel is haunting me.” Then I thought a little more logically, “I had better get between this dog and this hissing opossum or one of them will get bitten badly.”
Of course, I put my pink, fleshy legs in danger. That’s what kind of guy I am.
I yelled a few choice profanities (seemed appropriate for the occasion) and got Pip to back off. She is a terrier. She is bred to kill varmints. She was doing her job and doing it well.
Finally I got her herded into the house. I, of course, sent out the picture of our hissing, soccer-playing marsupial out to the internet. Pip was back in her native environment (our bed) and I faded off to sleep.
But if there any youth soccer leagues who want to be the “Fighting ‘Possums,” I got your mascot. Give me a call: 1-800-Opossum.
My husband sometimes builds things for customers and, on occasion, will paint things and they are left to dry in our garage – and he leaves the door up about 8-9″ for ventilation. One night a possom entered and went into the storage closet (which, yes, was also left open). The next day my husband had to go in there for something – the door is mounted backwards and goes INTO the room (needs to be corrected). Something hissed at him in the dark. It had fallen asleep. He couldn’t figure out how to get it out so by the time it was over, the Brandon Police (animal control) and the fire dept were at my house trying to get it out of the room. And all the young boys who were out of school (it was summer) were in my yard asking if our house was on fire. They brought it out and took it outside the city limits where it was probably very thankful that it was released by all of those crazy men.