Pontipus Pedro Opossum

Why my friend Stefani and I always end up having crazy adventures involving animals beats me. First there was Fandango the Falcon, then there was Stanley the Spider, and then last week we encountered Pontipus Pedro Opossum.

Stefani spent the last week house-sitting/dog-sitting for a couple who live way out in the sticks north of Stillwater. I went out there a couple of nights to chillax (resulting in numerous bug bites of some sort all over my body, but a different story for another day) and also to check out one of the dogs (it's sibling still needs to get adopted and I'm kind of/sort of/don't tell my parents in the market for a dog, but a different story for another day).

Moving along...the second night I went out there, I'm driving along the dirt road for the half mile or so to their house when an opossum jumps out in front of my car. The idea of hitting road kill is pretty disgusting so I let the thing pass. Little did I know I would very much regret that.

We were watching a movie when all of a sudden, Jenga the little terrier, starts barking incessantly. I then hear Stefani scream so loudly and grab her blanket over her head. I was very confused, but then I see it: the opossum. Jenga was so startled that literally the hair on her back was sticking straight up. The opossum was lurking right by the back door on the deck. Stefani continued screaming whilst I went to investigate. I looked out and saw that the opossum had discovered a bag of trash Stefani left out there. It was poking and prodding with its little fingers until it ripped a hole in said bag. At this point, I knew it was imperative to get rid of the creature and remove the bag of trash before we had a nasty trash problem to deal with on the deck.

I interrupted Stefani's screaming to ask if there was a broom of some sort in the house. I found a large stick, held back the dog, opened the sliding door, and started yelling and beating the stick on the deck. The opossum scantered off the deck. We re-bagged the trash, moved it into the laundry room, and resumed our movie watching.

Within ten minutes, it was back. This time, it was standing up on the door, peering into the house with its beady eyes, and its little fingers (which I think are so gross) were all over the window. Stefani resumed screaming and hiding underneath her blanket. I retrieved the stick and chased the opossum off once again. It darted under a table near the front door, which also happened to be underneath a window. I opened the window and yelled some more, startling the little sucker and it darted off the deck once again.

A mere two minutes later, the opossum returned. You'd think it would have learned its lesson, but no, not this opossum. Jenga went crazy again, this time Ranger (the boxer/lab mix whose brother I want to adopt) went a little crazy too. I grabbed that stick and went waving after it all over again. It retreated off the deck a final time. At this point we were done watching our movie and decided to go to sleep, hoping that Jenga wouldn't notice if it did come back so that we wouldn't get woken up by her crazy barking. We slept soundly through the night and did not awake to find any sign of Pontipus Pedro.

I should have hit that opossum when I had the chance...