The usual signs of spring are popping up all around our
house. The flowers bloom in our yard, the frog chorus performs in the creek
behind our house, and lizards scurry back and forth on the warm concrete.
Even though we live in the middle of suburbia, having the
creek behind us allows us to feel like we’re in the wilderness sometimes. We
hear lots of frogs, crickets and birds. Often, the frog chorus
will suddenly stop, and that’s when we know something larger has come to visit,
like a raccoon or opossum. After a moment, the beast passes through and the
frogs slowly start up again, one “ribbit” and “croak” at a time, until they’re
all back in harmony again.
But that’s just at night. Usually.
Yesterday, Hubs and I were pushing Quinn in his swing on the back porch when Q
pointed to the back fence and yelled out “dat!”
(which is Quinn-ese for “that.”) I turned expecting to see our neighbor’s cat
gracefully scaling the fence, which always makes Quinn go bananas.
But it wasn’t the neighbor’s cat. It was this guy.
One. Two. Three. EWWWWW!!!
We were a bit wary since opossums are nocturnal creatures
and are rarely seen during the day. Our visitor didn’t seem to care that the
sun was out, or that three humans were only twenty feet away, or that the small
human was repeatedly yelling “dat!” at the top of his lungs. Mr. Opossum slowly
strolled back and forth along the fence, casually eating leaves from our ivy, as
though this were perfectly normal opossum behavior.
This led us to believe that Mr. Opossum might be a little
old and senile or possibly very sick. Not to mention that opossums are one of
the ugliest creatures on the planet, and no one wants to touch something that
looks like a giant rodent. (Seriously, look at that tail! Bleh.) He was definitely not something we wanted Q to come
into contact with.
So I took Q out of the swing and brought him into the house.
Hubs, our fierce and brave protector, stayed outside to make sure our ugly
visitor eventually went on his way. And to take his picture.
I knew Q would chase frogs and lizards around our yard this
summer, and there would be a chance he would actually catch one (in which case I would sanitize him thoroughly).
But I never thought I would have to worry about him touching or (God-forbid
getting bitten by!) normally nocturnal, diseased, flea-ridden, rabid, giant,
rodent-looking, ugly opossums.
Terrific. Something else for me to spin about.
