Oh, Possum!

There are just some things you hope never to find in your house. (Or your garage, shed, or attic for that matter.) For me a possum would definitely be on that list.

I do not like mice. When we lived in the country, we had a big problem with mice. One time my husband saw a mouse in the kitchen. He jumped up from the table grabbed a bar stool and chased the mouse into the living room. The mouse ran behind the couch. My husband flipped the couch over and killed the mouse, who was probably holding still from shock, with the stool. Disgusting. Nothing like a mouse to make a man feel like a warrior.

Rats are even worse. Not only do they carry all the bad qualities of mice, but they also, in my mind, carry disease. Remember the Black Death of the 1300s.

Now possums are even bigger rodents than rats. If you have seen The Princess Bride you may remember when they are in the forest and are attacked by a Rodent of Unusual Size. That was a possum!

So my sister texted me a message last week, "Ahhhhhhhhhhh" was all it said. Turned out she had found a possum in her attic. She had unsuspectingly gone up into the attic to clean out some "pumpkins" the children had stored up there. I am not sure what these "pumpkins" actually were, because my son said they found these growing outside in the middle of a Michigan winter. They had brought back these valuable frozen treasures and stored them in the attic above the garage. Now the pumpkins had thawed and become a smelly mess.

Although my sister was afraid, her young children thought they could scare out a rodent that could eat them all in one delicious five course meal. Now I do admit that young, rambunctious children can be frightening, but not to this possum. When it started growling, my sister called them down.

Like little, brave soldiers, they wanted to try again another day.
"Make sure you don't hurt my car," their Grandma cautioned. Never mind that the children are going to be coming back bloody and mangled when the angry, growling rodent attacks. At least the car will be safe.

"If only you had carried it out in a box, when you first found it sleeping in the attic," Grandma told her daughter. Carry it out in a box? Yes, I can see that happening. Carefully pick up the box that the giant rodent is sleeping in, if you can lift it. Then try not to drop it as you climb down the steep attic stairs that you can't see because of the big box in front of you. Then hope not to wake it as you run screaming towards the woods. Nope. I wouldn't have picked up the box either. Though she did clean up the pumpkins, so she is a braver woman than I.

But I am still wondering, how does one rid himself of an opossum?