Possum at the door

Currently I have three weeks of work left, and then I am unemployed. It may be that I will be extended, or I may not be. I’m pretty sure that no one knows what they’re doing.

But I was here yesterday when a possum came to the front door. We had a large winter storm the day before- supposedly the biggest in a decade. (but nothing compared to the ones I remember as a kid). We received a pile of snow and some blizzardy winds and the whole city sort of shut down. The schools were closed but I still had to go into work.

It was a quiet day, most of our clients didn’t show up and by afternoon the place was empty. And that’s when I noticed the possum. He was standing in front of the two big glass doors- it looked like he was wondering how to come in. He wasn’t that big- a juvenile I’d say- and it may have even been a she.

I gathered all three of the staff that had made it in that day and we slowly moved closer to the glass door- maybe it sounds silly but nature is amazing to us city folk. I’ve only really seen dead bloated up possums at the side of the road.

However, when we got close we noticed that the possum was injured. It was in fact dragging its hind feet- and it’s long possum tale was covered in ice. It had come to us for help....

I searched the internet for animal rescue places. Meanwhile the other employees kept an eye on the possum. It was snowing heavily again, and the little fellow was wandering down our extremely long handicap ramp. Wasn’t that smart of him? I don’t think he could have handled all those stairs...

There are two animal rehab places but neither one of them does pickups. We were going to have to catch the little guy ourselves.

I went out to talk to him. I know I’m bad at this. I tend to talk to animals- I guess I believe that they can understand what I’m saying from the sound of my voice. I had a cardboard box in hand and I approached our possum friend, explaining the situation and what we were proposing.

The possum responded by shaking violently. Was it fear? Was it cold? Was it rabid?

One employee, a spunky lady, volunteered to grab the possum and stuff him into the box. That sort of thing makes me nervous. I can do it and I have done it before but I’m certain that I’m too rough. We agreed to spunky lady’s plan and the skinny girl kept watch while spunky lady went to look for thick gloves.

Meanwhile the possum was almost at the end of the extremely long wheelchair ramp. The skinny girl put the cardboard box at the bottom and I was there watching as the little fella reached the box and climbed in. We closed the lid and the possum was packaged.

I’m the only one with a car so the delivery fell to me. Spunky lady volunteered to come along and hold on to the box. Our possum friend hadn’t moved or stirred from his cardboard prison yet. Possum was equally quiet inside the car and on the trip, but we did get a hint of what musk glands are all about.

I had to drive through the snow bound town to the animal shelter- the one with the crematorium- which was the nearest official drop off for the animal rescue group. Almost no staff had made it in to the animal shelter so it took almost an hour for them to get organized enough to accept the possum. He peeked his head out once and we were delighted to see how invigorated he looked- his movements were quick and curious and his eyes were now sparkling- a direct contrast to when we had found him.

They carried the box away and he was gone, hopefully to better things. If he was too injured to survive at least he will be warm and will be put to sleep gently, instead of freezing in a snow storm. And of course he might go through rehab and end up free again.

This part of town is so grim these days we joked about him going into rehab, saying that the only way he’d been surviving was by dealing drugs to rodents.

I learned these things about possums:
They live short and fast- just two to four years from birth to breeding to old age.
They are robust and most don’t get rabies or other viruses that fell other animals.
They are omnivores- eating rats and mice as well as fruit, vegetables and garbage.
I already knew they were marsupials and that they had prehensile tales but apparently the tale is not strong enough to hold up the entire animal- it’s used as an aid in climbing.