no hospitality here

We had a most unwelcome visitor last night.

Several weeks ago Ben saw a teenage-sized possum sitting at the top of the basement stairs. With fear and trepidation, I did my laundry in the basement, but only during daylight hours would I venture to open that door. Possums are nocturnal, after all, so in case he was still there, I didn’t want to run into him and chose to sort and fold during his sleeping shift in case he was still around.

Then, a couple nights ago I thought I was hearing some sort of paper shuffling in our library but thought it was the cat. It wasn’t.

Last night Joe saw a long, thin possum tale hanging out from one of the cupboards under a bookshelf. Clay and I were gone so we hurried home where Clay donned a pair of heavy duty gloves he uses for approaching electrical wires and he picked up that possum, who was trembling, trembling even more than Joe was. That little critter is now in a tightly closed trash can waiting for the animal control man to give him a lift to his next home.

That possum dined on multiplication flash cards and an old atlas while he vacationed in my cupboard. With the heat and drought of central Illinois, I think the poor little guy was only looking for some place of refuge. At least that is my theory. What do I know of teenage possum angst? The only other option was that he thought, given the size of the deck, Clay was building an ark and the animals are now coming two by two. Which, of course, would mean that there is another possum lurking here somewhere.