PeeperStorm on 23/6/2011 at 09:54
So There I was about 30 minutes ago, sitting at my PC and discussing anime at some other forum, when my cat came in and said "PeeperStorm, there's a significant difficulty in the kitchen. I hate to bother you about it old fellow, but could you just pop in and see to it? Thanks ever so much." (To most people it would have sounded like "meooooow, meow, quack", but he and I understand each other pretty well, so that he knows exactly what I'm saying when he ignores me.)
I ignore his sudden affectation of a British accent and head off to see what's up. I hear rustling noises from the laundry area. This is a problem, because we hang rustlers in these here parts, and I don't have a rope. Figuring that a 25 foot electrical cord will work just a s well, I make a quick recon of that corner, and hear the sound coming from behind the dryer. Now I know that it isn't my cat, so it must be the other cat which belongs to my Mom. Normally I'd have her coax her cat out of there, but it's 2 am and she might hit me with her cane if I wake her. Fine. I'll deal with it.
I bent over the dryer to get a look behind it to see if the cat needed help getting out.
It wasn't the cat.
It was a possum. And he'd crawled in through a break in the dryer vent hose. Naturally I did what any decent, intelligent American male would do under those circumstances. I called him a little bastard. The possum was so offended that he promptly crawled back out through the hole in the hose and down the hose to the outside. Then I spent some time cutting off the damaged section of the hose and reattaching it. Almost as good as new, not counting having possum cooties in it.
I've successfully fended off this hostile takeover of the laundry, but will it be the last? The future is uncertain. That's why I've got the shotgun loaded and ready. Mwahahahah!
fett on 23/6/2011 at 17:58
I had no idea you lived in Arkansas.
Renzatic on 23/6/2011 at 18:27
Possums are awesome! They're ugly as hell, but overall pretty...well...I wouldn't say friendly, but they are fairly interesting animals.
I'd say about 6-7 years ago, I had one that almost became a household pet. We've got this cat that's more or less been taken care of by everyone neighborhood for the past 19 years now (old cat, now almost officially mine, since most of the old neighbors have either died off or moved away, and the new neighbors chase him off). He's pretty much friendly to any and all animals that come near him. He doesn't mind other cats, is pretty nonchalant about dogs, and even went so far as to become buddies with a possum.
It was the strangest thing. Normally, you'd think of possums as being hostile, solitary creatures. But during the night, this one would go almost everywhere with the cat. From 6PM til dawn, they'd be walking about, side by side. They'd even eat and drink together out of the same bowls. When we let the cat in at night during the winter, the possum would still be hanging about outside, waiting to be fed. Which, of course, I fed him. I can't let some poor animal starve to death. Even if it is some ugly, feral ass thing.
I dubbed him GR, for Gignormous Rat, and more or less adopted him as my own. He stuck around for about a year, then mysteriously disappeared one night, never to be seen again. My guess is he got hit by a car, as that's the eventual inevitable fate of all possums.
demagogue on 23/6/2011 at 19:09
I had nearly the same story as Peeper's once... Heard scratching in a back bedroom, poked around until we figured out it was coming from a window, pulled back the curtains and there was a baby possum cowering in the corner in absolute terror. I felt sorry for it, so mangy and small; but probably just jazz-hands at it so it ran back outside and called it bastard anyway. The crazy part is he would have come in through garage & the cat door at the front of the house, through the utility room, kitchen, living room, hall going past two rooms, to the back bedroom while someone was sleeping in there, and jumped up on that window and started scratching without anyone noticing.
And then just to top off the story, on the other side of the window behind the curtain was a tarantula that had apparently been just sitting on the other side the whole time, which scared the shit out of me after paying attention to the possum... He was probably just standing there petrified like "wtf is going on?!". So had to flick him into a bucket and toss him too.
Crazy night, that one.
Martin Karne on 24/6/2011 at 01:36
Well at least wasn't an alarm motion sensor triggered by a rat.
Oh and by the way you scared away your potentially new pet.
:p
PeeperStorm on 24/6/2011 at 02:59
Naw, possums are boring. They want to run and hide whenever you turn on a light.
I suppose it could have been worse. Could have been a young raccoon. They carry the T-virus, right?
Mr.Duck on 24/6/2011 at 15:22
I once had tea with a cockroach who called itself Kakfa.
He was very rude and ate all my biscuits.
Tocky on 25/6/2011 at 06:28
But he improved your tea an biscuit making skills and you got to walk around all important in your government frock coat.
Renzes story was oddly touching, like Disney meets the hood in a good way. My Eli cat hates opossums with a stand on chair hissing frenzy and my Zoe girl kitty would slap a coon off her bowl because she didn't stand for no mess. A grown coon will back me down but she would swat one off the porch chile. All of them back away at the timid waddle of a skunk though. There is a life lesson there somewhere.
Aerothorn on 25/6/2011 at 16:14
Quote Posted by Renzatic
I dubbed him GR, for Gignormous Rat, and more or less adopted him as my own. He stuck around for about a year, then mysteriously disappeared one night, never to be seen again. My guess is he got hit by a car, as that's the eventual inevitable fate of all possums.
He also could have just died of old age: according to Wikipedia, opossums have a bizarrely short lifespan for an animal of their size, only two to four years; and once they start "getting old" they die FAST. Factoring in fatalities, opossums "rarely live a full two years in the wild" (Washington State). Ouch.
