Night Tails
It was the Blue Hour. The evening sky was slipping into a gorgeous turquoise-indigo. A solitary brilliant planet was sparkling after a sultry summer day. My five-year-old grandchildren were snuggling close to me after a productive day of “gardening,” that is to say, running the hose, digging mushy holes in the resulting mud, and sticking bean seeds in the ground. Tummies full and bodies weary, they leaned into me as we shared a garden swing.
“Tell us a story, Mer,” pleaded Juliet.
“Story,” echoed her four-day-older cousin, Kess.
Kess was transfixed, as usual, with the crescent moon hovering near Venus. I briefly considered creating another moon story for them and wracked my brain momentarily to think how I might transform that story yet again.
It was Juliet who spotted it. “Look! What’s that on the fence? Is it a kitty?” Kess, always a fan of kitties, swiveled his head to stare into the gathering murk to look for that pleasant novelty, a cat.
The animal carefully chose its steps as it traversed the wooden fence. Where I looked for a bushy tail, I saw only a ropey, skinny thing. Its rounded back looked unlike any cat I’d ever seen. Suddenly the chihuahua started barking furiously at it and it froze. I was sure any self-respecting cat would have shot out of the scene like a banshee but this critter did not. Instead, it stood as still as a statue, hoping to recede into the gloom.
“Did I ever tell you two about my pet possum?” I asked.
“Possum?” responded Kess. “You had a pet possum? Did it wear a collar?”
“Where did you get a pet possum?” inquired Juliet. “Do they have them at pet stores?” We had been to a pet store just the previous week and both kids were intrigued by all the pets one might consider caring for.
“Actually, no. I was walking through the school and found it. It was lying under a bush in the middle of a sunny day. It looked to me like it was injured. I figured it was 'playing possum.' They do that, you know. When a predator attacks them, they play dead. They hope the predator will go away.
"I actually walked back home and grabbed a big shovel and a brown grocery bag. Even though the possum wasn’t moving and I thought it might be hurt, I didn’t want to risk having it wake up and bite me. They’re wild animals, you know.
“So I used the big shovel that we dug with today to carefully slide it under the possum and gently put her in the bag so I could carry her home.”
“And then what?” Juliet probed.
“I happened to have a large rabbit house This Big.” I stretched out my arms as far as they would reach to each side. “I set the possum in there so no other animals would bother it.”
“What kind of animals, Mer?” Kess inquired with big brown eyes.
“Oh, maybe even coyotes,” I answered. Kess gave a nervous shiver.
“The next day I checked on the possum. It still wasn’t moving. I put a bowl of water in there in case it got thirsty when I wasn’t looking. But the day after that, it had moved. So, I went all around my yard and collected every snail I could find. The possum thought those were delicious and gobbled them ALL UP.” I mimicked the sound of the wolf in the fairy tale who wants to gobble up the three little pigs.
“Now I knew that many people think possums are ugly or scary. I felt sorry for my possum because I thought she looked kind of sweet, even if she did have a naked tail like a rat. I thought I wanted to make it up to her so I thought of the fanciest name for her I could think of. I named her Emmaline. Of course, I wasn’t really even sure if she were a girl or a boy. So, I just guessed.
“Every so often I would put on a heavy glove to pet the back of Emmaline when I gave her the snails. I hoped she would get used to me.
“By and by, it didn’t take long before I could no longer could find any snails in my yard. I wondered what I could feed her next. Of course, I remembered a previous possum we had fed cat food to. So, I filled a bowl with cat food and left that in her cage. But after a while I thought that eating nothing but cat food must be kind of boring. Since Emmaline was living inside a cage, I felt I had a responsibility to take extra good care of her. I started giving her a banana every night. By this time, Emmaline was feeling much better and I would watch her eagerly eat that banana every night.
“Now you realize, possums like to sleep all day and explore all night. They look for snails and bugs and even bird eggs to eat. So one night I gave her a raw egg. She loved it! But of course, Emmaline didn’t really have very good table manners so she managed to tip over the paper plate with the egg on it. The egg would slither away through the wire on the bottom of the cage. Then it would fall three feet to the ground below. After that, I realized that to save the egg, I would have to make sure it didn’t escape. I began to fry the egg so it wouldn’t go anywhere.”
“I like eggs,” remarked Juliet.
“I like bananas,” responded Kess. “And eggs.”
“Did you ever take it for a walk?” asked Juliet.
“No, but I did get it used to me enough that I could reach in there with heavy gloves and carefully pick her up. She always hissed at me and showed me her very pointed teeth. So I was always careful. But eventually I began to pick it up very gingerly and hold it. She never stopped the hissing and the threatening teeth though.”
“Was that your only possum, Mer?” asked Kess.
“Funny you should ask,” I replied. There have been several possums who have wandered through my life. Do you want to hear another possum story?”
By now the kids were transfixed. “Yeah!!!!” they both begged.
“Well, this story also starts with a cat,” I said. “We had a black and white kitten that was so talented batting balls around that I named it Pele. One time we decided to go on a vacation. The cat was grown up by then and was accustomed to playing outside every day. I decided to leave a really big pile of cat food on a couple plates in the house as well as a large bowl of water. The cat could come and go from its food in the kitchen, through the door to the garage, and then out through a vent in the garage. It was great! The cat could take care of itself. I knew the cat would go stir-crazy locked up in the house and would probably destroy things and maybe even poop everywhere.
“We got home from our vacation and discovered that the huge pile of cat food was almost gone. I said to the cat, ‘Have you invited in all your friends?’”
“Now the sad part of the story is that a short time later, our cat dieda month or so later.” Here both Juliet and Kess shivered.
“And a few weeks after that I was sleeping in my cozy bed upstairs and was awakened by a scrabbling sound at the door to my bedroom. “Ah, it’s just the cat” I thought to myself.
“But then I suddenly remembered, ‘We no longer have a cat!’”
“Again and again, I would hear the scrabbling at the door but, of course, I couldn’t really see anything in the dark. So I grabbed the flashlight beside my bed and waited quietly for some minutes before I heard it again! I instantly turned on the flashlight and there, with it’s face looking over its shoulder at me, I saw A POSSUM.”
Kess and Juliet gasped at this suspenseful development.
“The possum disappeared so I turned to your Grandpa and woke him up. ‘There’s a possum in our bedroom’! Grandpa leaped up and went down the hall to consult with your Uncle Kris. He came back to the bedroom wearing a giant glove that reached almost all the way up to his armpit. Grandpa started peering under the bed and in all the corners. He finally looked into the nooks and crannies of our big closet. That wasn’t easy because we have shoes and a dirty clothes basket and stacked boxes in there. Meanwhile, I was still lying in bed. Suddenly, Grandpa appears, holding the possum by its tail OVER MY HEAD while I’m lying in bed. I looked up and saw the possum’s shiny white teeth. I knew that possums drool a lot and I really didn’t want that possum drooling on my bed! Or my head.
“Yikes! Take it outside!” I urged him vigorously.. So Grandpa went out, carrying this possum by its naked tail. He told me later that he had released the critter somewhere in our back garden. Surprisingly, after all that excitment, I was able to go back to sleep.”
“Was it Emmaline, Mer?” asked Kess.
“No, hon, it was a long time after Emmaline stayed with us.” I answered.
“It was probably Emmaline’s cousin,” replied Juliet.
“You could be right,” I answered.
“Was that the end?” asked Kess.
“Well, not quite,” I replied.
“What happened next?” Kess inquired.
“Well, we figured out that the possum had been living in our house for weeks and weeks,” I said.
“How did you know?” Juliet demanded.
“Well, this possum had lived in our house a pretty long time. We realized that --after we found dried up poop downstairs in the corner of our dining room and in the far corner in the living room. Upstairs, there was poop tucked into several corners of our closet. We had shut the kitchen door to the garage so the possum could no longer go back outside. So it just had to make do in the house. That silly possum probably went up and down the stairs every night!”
“Ooh, gross!” said Juliet.
“Cool!” said Kess.
“I have to admit,” I replied. “It was both gross and cool. But it certainly was an adventure.”
We looked at the night sky for a few minutes. The moon had set behind our hill. A family of coyotes began to howl.
“C’mon, kiddos, it’s time for bed. Good thing we cleaned the mud off of you earlier. That way you can just come in and curl up in bed.”
“I want a possum snack,” said Juliet.
“What?” I was confused.
“You know, a banana and an egg.” She replied.
“Me too,” responded Kess. “But no snails.”
“No, snails,” I replied. “You got it.”
This story is 99% autobiographical.
“Tell us a story, Mer,” pleaded Juliet.
“Story,” echoed her four-day-older cousin, Kess.
Kess was transfixed, as usual, with the crescent moon hovering near Venus. I briefly considered creating another moon story for them and wracked my brain momentarily to think how I might transform that story yet again.
It was Juliet who spotted it. “Look! What’s that on the fence? Is it a kitty?” Kess, always a fan of kitties, swiveled his head to stare into the gathering murk to look for that pleasant novelty, a cat.
The animal carefully chose its steps as it traversed the wooden fence. Where I looked for a bushy tail, I saw only a ropey, skinny thing. Its rounded back looked unlike any cat I’d ever seen. Suddenly the chihuahua started barking furiously at it and it froze. I was sure any self-respecting cat would have shot out of the scene like a banshee but this critter did not. Instead, it stood as still as a statue, hoping to recede into the gloom.
“Did I ever tell you two about my pet possum?” I asked.
“Possum?” responded Kess. “You had a pet possum? Did it wear a collar?”
“Where did you get a pet possum?” inquired Juliet. “Do they have them at pet stores?” We had been to a pet store just the previous week and both kids were intrigued by all the pets one might consider caring for.
“Actually, no. I was walking through the school and found it. It was lying under a bush in the middle of a sunny day. It looked to me like it was injured. I figured it was 'playing possum.' They do that, you know. When a predator attacks them, they play dead. They hope the predator will go away.
"I actually walked back home and grabbed a big shovel and a brown grocery bag. Even though the possum wasn’t moving and I thought it might be hurt, I didn’t want to risk having it wake up and bite me. They’re wild animals, you know.
“So I used the big shovel that we dug with today to carefully slide it under the possum and gently put her in the bag so I could carry her home.”
“And then what?” Juliet probed.
“I happened to have a large rabbit house This Big.” I stretched out my arms as far as they would reach to each side. “I set the possum in there so no other animals would bother it.”
“What kind of animals, Mer?” Kess inquired with big brown eyes.
“Oh, maybe even coyotes,” I answered. Kess gave a nervous shiver.
“The next day I checked on the possum. It still wasn’t moving. I put a bowl of water in there in case it got thirsty when I wasn’t looking. But the day after that, it had moved. So, I went all around my yard and collected every snail I could find. The possum thought those were delicious and gobbled them ALL UP.” I mimicked the sound of the wolf in the fairy tale who wants to gobble up the three little pigs.
“Now I knew that many people think possums are ugly or scary. I felt sorry for my possum because I thought she looked kind of sweet, even if she did have a naked tail like a rat. I thought I wanted to make it up to her so I thought of the fanciest name for her I could think of. I named her Emmaline. Of course, I wasn’t really even sure if she were a girl or a boy. So, I just guessed.
“Every so often I would put on a heavy glove to pet the back of Emmaline when I gave her the snails. I hoped she would get used to me.
“By and by, it didn’t take long before I could no longer could find any snails in my yard. I wondered what I could feed her next. Of course, I remembered a previous possum we had fed cat food to. So, I filled a bowl with cat food and left that in her cage. But after a while I thought that eating nothing but cat food must be kind of boring. Since Emmaline was living inside a cage, I felt I had a responsibility to take extra good care of her. I started giving her a banana every night. By this time, Emmaline was feeling much better and I would watch her eagerly eat that banana every night.
“Now you realize, possums like to sleep all day and explore all night. They look for snails and bugs and even bird eggs to eat. So one night I gave her a raw egg. She loved it! But of course, Emmaline didn’t really have very good table manners so she managed to tip over the paper plate with the egg on it. The egg would slither away through the wire on the bottom of the cage. Then it would fall three feet to the ground below. After that, I realized that to save the egg, I would have to make sure it didn’t escape. I began to fry the egg so it wouldn’t go anywhere.”
“I like eggs,” remarked Juliet.
“I like bananas,” responded Kess. “And eggs.”
“Did you ever take it for a walk?” asked Juliet.
“No, but I did get it used to me enough that I could reach in there with heavy gloves and carefully pick her up. She always hissed at me and showed me her very pointed teeth. So I was always careful. But eventually I began to pick it up very gingerly and hold it. She never stopped the hissing and the threatening teeth though.”
“Was that your only possum, Mer?” asked Kess.
“Funny you should ask,” I replied. There have been several possums who have wandered through my life. Do you want to hear another possum story?”
By now the kids were transfixed. “Yeah!!!!” they both begged.
“Well, this story also starts with a cat,” I said. “We had a black and white kitten that was so talented batting balls around that I named it Pele. One time we decided to go on a vacation. The cat was grown up by then and was accustomed to playing outside every day. I decided to leave a really big pile of cat food on a couple plates in the house as well as a large bowl of water. The cat could come and go from its food in the kitchen, through the door to the garage, and then out through a vent in the garage. It was great! The cat could take care of itself. I knew the cat would go stir-crazy locked up in the house and would probably destroy things and maybe even poop everywhere.
“We got home from our vacation and discovered that the huge pile of cat food was almost gone. I said to the cat, ‘Have you invited in all your friends?’”
“Now the sad part of the story is that a short time later, our cat dieda month or so later.” Here both Juliet and Kess shivered.
“And a few weeks after that I was sleeping in my cozy bed upstairs and was awakened by a scrabbling sound at the door to my bedroom. “Ah, it’s just the cat” I thought to myself.
“But then I suddenly remembered, ‘We no longer have a cat!’”
“Again and again, I would hear the scrabbling at the door but, of course, I couldn’t really see anything in the dark. So I grabbed the flashlight beside my bed and waited quietly for some minutes before I heard it again! I instantly turned on the flashlight and there, with it’s face looking over its shoulder at me, I saw A POSSUM.”
Kess and Juliet gasped at this suspenseful development.
“The possum disappeared so I turned to your Grandpa and woke him up. ‘There’s a possum in our bedroom’! Grandpa leaped up and went down the hall to consult with your Uncle Kris. He came back to the bedroom wearing a giant glove that reached almost all the way up to his armpit. Grandpa started peering under the bed and in all the corners. He finally looked into the nooks and crannies of our big closet. That wasn’t easy because we have shoes and a dirty clothes basket and stacked boxes in there. Meanwhile, I was still lying in bed. Suddenly, Grandpa appears, holding the possum by its tail OVER MY HEAD while I’m lying in bed. I looked up and saw the possum’s shiny white teeth. I knew that possums drool a lot and I really didn’t want that possum drooling on my bed! Or my head.
“Yikes! Take it outside!” I urged him vigorously.. So Grandpa went out, carrying this possum by its naked tail. He told me later that he had released the critter somewhere in our back garden. Surprisingly, after all that excitment, I was able to go back to sleep.”
“Was it Emmaline, Mer?” asked Kess.
“No, hon, it was a long time after Emmaline stayed with us.” I answered.
“It was probably Emmaline’s cousin,” replied Juliet.
“You could be right,” I answered.
“Was that the end?” asked Kess.
“Well, not quite,” I replied.
“What happened next?” Kess inquired.
“Well, we figured out that the possum had been living in our house for weeks and weeks,” I said.
“How did you know?” Juliet demanded.
“Well, this possum had lived in our house a pretty long time. We realized that --after we found dried up poop downstairs in the corner of our dining room and in the far corner in the living room. Upstairs, there was poop tucked into several corners of our closet. We had shut the kitchen door to the garage so the possum could no longer go back outside. So it just had to make do in the house. That silly possum probably went up and down the stairs every night!”
“Ooh, gross!” said Juliet.
“Cool!” said Kess.
“I have to admit,” I replied. “It was both gross and cool. But it certainly was an adventure.”
We looked at the night sky for a few minutes. The moon had set behind our hill. A family of coyotes began to howl.
“C’mon, kiddos, it’s time for bed. Good thing we cleaned the mud off of you earlier. That way you can just come in and curl up in bed.”
“I want a possum snack,” said Juliet.
“What?” I was confused.
“You know, a banana and an egg.” She replied.
“Me too,” responded Kess. “But no snails.”
“No, snails,” I replied. “You got it.”
This story is 99% autobiographical.