What was that guy doing with all the knives at the beginning of 'Willy Wonka?'
Seriously- the man has a rattling cart full of butchering supplies, and I've never thought about why he's tugging a mobile murder machine, only ever his queer riddle about the oompa-loompas. This is either a statement on the film making capabilities of the Wonka-verse, or a startling bleak statement about my priorities.
That being said I *hope* that if I ever truly saw a homeless looking wastrel coming down a factory lined street in the industrial district as dusk falls, pushing a towcart full of rusty, metal meat instruments towards me (or, at all, I guess) I would notice, question it and run for my fricken life.
Anyway, speaking of Cthulhu horrors, let me tell you about my encounter with the opossum mafia.
At my work, we have an over abundance of opossums and rabbits. I will take this gladly over rats and roaches any fucking day of the week, so I don't mind them. The bunnies, in particular, are really adorable. They eat the flip out of our produce garden, though, and drive the chefs and landscapers spare, but that doesn't affect me, so I generally don't think of them. It's bad for the management team because you can't kill them- being a bunny boiler has generated some seriously negative press over the years, and if we had opossum traps out we'd have PETA marching our asses down outside right and left. Not great for the brochure. But, once again, not in charge of wildlife wrangling. The opossums usually operate on my wavelength. They don't acknowledge me, and I don't acknowledge them. Works a treat!
Except, one night, not long ago, I accidentally ran over one. I was turning onto the bridge, and it just darted out in front of me, and I had no way to slow down, or swerve because there were other cars and I didn't see it in time. I felt terrible! I would never intentionally hurt an animal that wasn't attacking me. I don't even butcher my own meat. I make Husbandface take the chicken out of the package for me. I'm very pro-life, except when it comes to unwanted fetuses. But anyway, I was distraught and I felt very badly for all opossum kind. I thought that they would get that it was an accident, and that I would repay it by not reporting them in the trash bins outside the loading dock to facilities, like I'm supposed to, and we'd call it inter-species square.
But no! They're out to get me now!
One night, not too long ago, I'm heading to my car after a late shift (so it's about 12:15 in the morning, and the parking lot is dark, dismal, and deserted). I'm leaving a voicemail for my sonofabitch best friend who decided that 'getting some sleep' so that she could, you know, 'be awake and ready' for her 'job' was more important than listening to me whinge about all the crazy people who'd checked in that day. And I cross the lot, nearing Dirtybaby (my steed), and there is a fucking *gleam* from underneath. There is a opossum under my car, and it is glaring at me, balefully and with hot, hot heat, for daring to approach.
Now, I'm alone. I took the time to change before heading out, so even the valets had gone. I have no way to get it out, because it's a beach front hotel and we're short on sticks. Long on palm trees, and groomed hedges, but short on sticks. Not that I want to poke a opossum with a stick, because I am *absolutely* sure it would win in a fight. So I'm just staring at it, and leaving what might just be my most panicked message on Aurorzapan's answerphone to date.
"Aurora. Aurora. There is an opossum. I repeat- there is an opossum UNDERNEATH my vehicle. (I don't know why I speak like that when I get scared. It's like I become a clinician trying to quantify the random chaos that I'm caught in. That or a police dispatch.) It is looking at me, with both of its eyes. I believe it is three feet in length, approximately 10 inches tall, greyish fur and it is beneath the vehicle in question. Please send help. Please send help quickly. They're retaliating."
Needless to say, there was no help forthcoming.
So I'm just waiting for this creature to quit my life. I wondered why Poe got a raven and I get a filth beast of unusual size. (They do exist.)
And I call my husband, who, after he stops laughing, tells me to just walk towards it, and look large. He has terrible ideas and is not good at advice. I hung up on him, and waited some more, still clutching my keys like a talisman against rodent diseases. I know then, I have an inkling, that things are *not* square, and that I am clearly on some sort of opossum hit list. Then I think, hey, maybe a noise! It'll get scared, and run, and abandon its mission.
So I click my clickybutton for the locks. It immediately slumps over dead. Now I'm stuck with the varmint's version of Brad Pitt playing the ending scene of Hamlet out under my car. Flabbergasted is not the word.
So long story slightly shorter, I hop in the car in what, for me, is an extreme leap of faith, and peel out.There are three opossums lined up on the corner when I turn onto Orange that night. Just... watching.
And then tonight, there were two sitting on the awning of the day spa next to my work when I went to go pick up some RedBull from the liquor store.
Opossum. Mafia. And I'm absolutely their primary target.
Pray for me.
That being said I *hope* that if I ever truly saw a homeless looking wastrel coming down a factory lined street in the industrial district as dusk falls, pushing a towcart full of rusty, metal meat instruments towards me (or, at all, I guess) I would notice, question it and run for my fricken life.
Anyway, speaking of Cthulhu horrors, let me tell you about my encounter with the opossum mafia.
At my work, we have an over abundance of opossums and rabbits. I will take this gladly over rats and roaches any fucking day of the week, so I don't mind them. The bunnies, in particular, are really adorable. They eat the flip out of our produce garden, though, and drive the chefs and landscapers spare, but that doesn't affect me, so I generally don't think of them. It's bad for the management team because you can't kill them- being a bunny boiler has generated some seriously negative press over the years, and if we had opossum traps out we'd have PETA marching our asses down outside right and left. Not great for the brochure. But, once again, not in charge of wildlife wrangling. The opossums usually operate on my wavelength. They don't acknowledge me, and I don't acknowledge them. Works a treat!
Except, one night, not long ago, I accidentally ran over one. I was turning onto the bridge, and it just darted out in front of me, and I had no way to slow down, or swerve because there were other cars and I didn't see it in time. I felt terrible! I would never intentionally hurt an animal that wasn't attacking me. I don't even butcher my own meat. I make Husbandface take the chicken out of the package for me. I'm very pro-life, except when it comes to unwanted fetuses. But anyway, I was distraught and I felt very badly for all opossum kind. I thought that they would get that it was an accident, and that I would repay it by not reporting them in the trash bins outside the loading dock to facilities, like I'm supposed to, and we'd call it inter-species square.
But no! They're out to get me now!
One night, not too long ago, I'm heading to my car after a late shift (so it's about 12:15 in the morning, and the parking lot is dark, dismal, and deserted). I'm leaving a voicemail for my sonofabitch best friend who decided that 'getting some sleep' so that she could, you know, 'be awake and ready' for her 'job' was more important than listening to me whinge about all the crazy people who'd checked in that day. And I cross the lot, nearing Dirtybaby (my steed), and there is a fucking *gleam* from underneath. There is a opossum under my car, and it is glaring at me, balefully and with hot, hot heat, for daring to approach.
Now, I'm alone. I took the time to change before heading out, so even the valets had gone. I have no way to get it out, because it's a beach front hotel and we're short on sticks. Long on palm trees, and groomed hedges, but short on sticks. Not that I want to poke a opossum with a stick, because I am *absolutely* sure it would win in a fight. So I'm just staring at it, and leaving what might just be my most panicked message on Aurorzapan's answerphone to date.
"Aurora. Aurora. There is an opossum. I repeat- there is an opossum UNDERNEATH my vehicle. (I don't know why I speak like that when I get scared. It's like I become a clinician trying to quantify the random chaos that I'm caught in. That or a police dispatch.) It is looking at me, with both of its eyes. I believe it is three feet in length, approximately 10 inches tall, greyish fur and it is beneath the vehicle in question. Please send help. Please send help quickly. They're retaliating."
Needless to say, there was no help forthcoming.
So I'm just waiting for this creature to quit my life. I wondered why Poe got a raven and I get a filth beast of unusual size. (They do exist.)
And I call my husband, who, after he stops laughing, tells me to just walk towards it, and look large. He has terrible ideas and is not good at advice. I hung up on him, and waited some more, still clutching my keys like a talisman against rodent diseases. I know then, I have an inkling, that things are *not* square, and that I am clearly on some sort of opossum hit list. Then I think, hey, maybe a noise! It'll get scared, and run, and abandon its mission.
So I click my clickybutton for the locks. It immediately slumps over dead. Now I'm stuck with the varmint's version of Brad Pitt playing the ending scene of Hamlet out under my car. Flabbergasted is not the word.
So long story slightly shorter, I hop in the car in what, for me, is an extreme leap of faith, and peel out.There are three opossums lined up on the corner when I turn onto Orange that night. Just... watching.
And then tonight, there were two sitting on the awning of the day spa next to my work when I went to go pick up some RedBull from the liquor store.
Opossum. Mafia. And I'm absolutely their primary target.
Pray for me.