So I was leaving for work, closing my back caged iron Chicago doorgate, in the dirty alley, with nothing but urban grittiness all around me, when what should I see on the flat concrete parking space across from me?
It was chubby with bushy white fur, a long rat like tail, and a cute pointy nose. As I watched, it yawned, showing a mouthful of the most adorable sharp predatory teeth. A POSSUM!
A POSSUM graces this paved over wasteland.
It promptly waddled under a car, as any right thinking possum would do.
So Clarence’s yankee cousin lives behind my building. Cool. I mean, GOOD GOOD GOOD.
We have opossums aplenty here in Chicago suburbia. You must have one on loan. I’ve grown fond of them over time, shifting from viewing them as mangy rat-critters to having their own vibe. Curiously, we have opossums and skunks in the area but I’ve never seen a raccoon at this house – I guess maybe there’s only so many “suburban scavenger” niches to go around.
Here’s the cat, wondering wtf is up with this weird giant mouse:
bobot, thanks for posting this, I learned something. I thought opossums were waddling little bags of virulent rabies. Now I can just avoid them because they’re vicious little monsters.
Possums are pretty common here in the near western suburbs of Chicago. We’ve had one hanging around the yard all year; the only real downside seems to be that the poops are sizable.
I haven’t seen them in awhile, but even here on the south side of the city, near Midway Airport, the occasional possum has been spotted. When I was in Evanston, though, possum and racoon aplenty. One died and was decomposing in our basement one summer’s day when one of my roommates found it, and I was designated as the marsupial mortician mostly because, well, I was the only one who was willing to do it.
@Beckdawrek mails you her tranquilizer gun with dart, already proven effective on Clarence.
Chicago Possum gets traq’d, put in cat cage along with gun.
Cat cage with all contents dispatched c/o Beckdawrek, Arkansas. No further address details needed – every Arkansas state trooper knows where she lives. It is the stuff of legend.
Beckdawrek now has two possums, everyone lives happily ever after. The End.
Well, as a semi-expert in husbandry of the wild 'possum I will, of course take your Yankee 'possum.
I’ll southernize ‘it’, in a heartbeat.
And I would agree. 'possums ain’t the prettyist things on the planet.
I, myself have never judged creatures on their looks or their mental capacity. That’s how I live agreebly with my family.
I will speak to Clarence about sharing his bucket house. (It’s now in the garage, he’s getting closer to inside the house, eeeeekk!)
