Why I Sometimes Hate Living In a Small Town, Part 2

[saone]

Had an odd experience this morning...

I was getting ready to go to work when Berry starts barking her head off by the backdoor. It's too early to be a delivery, or the garbagemen, so I'm thinking who the hell could be trying to visit at the unholy time of 8:45 in the morning. I go around to the side door, which is made mostly of windows, to check, and there it is... a possum... happily starting to chew on a trashbag.

Well, hell.

I just imagined how the phone call to work would sound - "Hey, P. I'm gonna be late. Sorry, but I'm being held hostage by a large, furry marsupial."

So, I open the back door just a crack, and it looks up and blinks at me. Just, blinks.

I go "Shoo shoo!" Swear to God, that's what I said. Shoo. But it got the message, and scurried off and slipped under the deck. Peachy.

At least now we know what's been getting into the garbage cans. I guess a possum is better than a raccoon.

Comments

[workingslacker.livejournal.com]

Possums are MEAN. They hiss. FYI, hitting them with brooms just make them mad. *shudders* *hugs*

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,

Sorry, but I'm being held hostage by a large, furry marsupial.

-I laugh at your marsupials. Try being jumped on in a tent in the middle of
the night by an inquisitive Tasmanian Devil, which then collapses the tent and panics and... *is not pretty*

Gav!

[saone77.livejournal.com]

Possums are MEAN. They hiss.

The hissing doesn't worry me. It's what else they can do with their mouthes, like biting, that worries me.

hitting them with brooms just make them mad

I find that's true of most things, actually. I say most, because small children just tend to cry. ;D

[saone77.livejournal.com]

Try being jumped on in a tent in the middle of
the night by an inquisitive Tasmanian Devil, which then collapses the tent and panics and... *is not pretty*

I can imagine. And the thing I was most worried about was getting bit. Rabies shots *hurt*. My mom had to have a series of them after she had a little late night run in with a bat.

Of course, I found on www.opossumsocietyus.org the following info:

Any mammal can get rabies. However, the chance of rabies in an opossum is EXTREMELY RARE. This may have something to do with the opossum’s low body temperature (94-97º F) making it difficult for the virus to survive in an opossum’s body.

That makes me feel a bit better. Still don't want to get close enough to test out that theory, though. *g*

[wirrrn.livejournal.com]

Hey,

So far as I know, *all* Marsupials have weird-assed body chemistry that makes the Rabies virus tough for them to get...

Australia is *officially* Rabies free. But every now and then the Government goes completely apeshit about keeping people out of a reserve whilst they track down some vague, obscure "wild animal". I think they're covering up for something. Possibly monkey and Ebola related *g*

"Nope, Nothing like this in Oz!":

Don't even get me started on our Phantom Big Cats...

Gav!