the possum story
The fabulous Meg over at CuteOverload! has declared several "rules" about what she's observed makes the pictures she posts cute. For instance, #5: "Fisheye lens + baby animal is always cute," or #10: It's cute "If you haven't grown into your feet yet..." Today, she was apparently shocked to find a picture that contradicted a rule she'd long held mentally: that possums can never ever be cute. Evidently, baby possums are the exception that proves that rule.
Which reminds me of the story that happened to me and allowed me to Already Know That.
I once held the Rule 16 opinion myself - adult possums are, of course, hellspawn - until one night a few years back when I was living in a little free-standing guest house thingy, on an evening when I was leaving both front and back doors open to let the cats roam free. At some point I heard a crunching sound behind me, which I took to be that of one of my cats returning for a quick bite from his food dish. Then, a few minutes later, there were sounds in the bathroom that...weren't the cats. I didn't know what they were, but they weren't right.
I investigated to find one small gray baby possum had wandered into my house to do the afore-mentioned nibbling.
I then spent the better part of an hour trying to shoo it back outside. Unfortunately, I couldn't accomplish it because for one thing, it eschewed all paths to the outside and with each new choice kept moving deeper into my house. And for the other, it was just too...polite. It refused to panic or run anywhere, as though that would be discourteous. When I tried to direct it somewhere with shouts or my big scary broom, it would simply waddle with a complete lack of hurry to some other hiding place, like "Okay, if you don't like me there, I'll just go over here, then. Don't mind me!"
An hour later, I'd shuttled it between at least a dozen hiding places, a process which had left me covered in sweat since I'd heaved aside almost every major piece of furniture I owned in various attempts to cater to and coerce it. I'd even tried to arrange all of said furniture into a kind of path that would ONLY lead to my open front door, a yawning chasm that it ignored utterly for the cozy concealment of a space behind my bookshelf. It finally ended up perched on the end of a rolled up piece of posterboard that was standing in a corner, head in and little butt sticking out, as if hiding his eyes would make the big crazy lady go away.
Now, at this point my Possum Opinion was well into its changeover -- the little guy had been nothing but docile. Not only that, but I had called Animal Services for advice, and they'd told me that if they came out to catch him for me they'd be forced by regulations to "euthanize" my visitor, as possums were rated "nuisance animals" and no exceptions could be made. And as far as I was concerned this was out of the question -- so you know something different was going on in the ol' noggin for that to be my stance.
It finally occurred to me that a change in tactics might not only be safe, but perhaps the only way to resolve things. So I took a chance, donned a gardening glove (just in case it surprised me and tried to bite) and just picked it up by the tail. The tail promptly wrapped around my wrist, of course, and all four paws reeled in apprehensive, independent circles. Chanting comforting nonsense, I hustled over to the front door as quickly as I could and deposited him gently on the front stoop. There was a tiny thin trail of wetness after him as he wandered away in bewilderment -- the poor thing got so nervous being picked up that he peed!
Strangely and quite unreasonably, I often think back fondly about my shy, gray, waddling little visitor and wish that we could have hung out a little longer. Oh, I know he would have grown up to be quite Beelzebub-y, but at the time I met him he was the sweetest. Cutest. Thing. (say it with me now) EVAH!
Edit: Ooh! I totally forgot this, which ties in nicely: an article at H2G2 (Hitchhikers Guide To the Galaxy) Encyclopedia, kind of the funny version of Wikipedia: "How to Get A Possum Off Your Dresser"