I found it particularly well-timed thatthis cartoon showed up in my mailbox yesterday. I've had a subscription to Mutts, now, for a few months (ever since I found out they were online), and have never been sorry I asked to receive the strip. But last night did me in.
As I mentioned in my previous post, I had been trying to watch tv, last evening, when, just outside my window there came such a clatter...no, it wasn't Saint Nick & his 8 tiny reindeer. I thought, in fact, it was one of the big bully tomcats which roam the block in search of free food or free nookie.
Nope.
It was some possum, apparently not gone into hibernation, dammit! We'd had a brief thaw, and the food I'd put out for the cats was just too much for him to pass up, in his midnight fridge raid (okay, it was hours until midnight, but I don't think opossums can read clocks, even if they're digital).
I have furniture on my porch, to provide seating and shelter for the kitties -- bunches of chairs and shelves with rugs and curtains and stuff, so they are protected against the elements (and so I can occasionally hide crap that I've bought from auction). This marsupial had the gall to start knocking the dinette chairs upside down! Needless to say, I the din was great enough that I couldn't concentrate on the tv show, so I went out with my flashlight (porch light is disconnected until I can get an electrician I trust to come replace it), and tried to chase the critter away.
Well, he tried to run. He (or she) scrambled out from behind the inverted dinette chair, and made haste toward the simple, straight porch railing... not over it, but between the uprights. With some effort, the critter managed to get its front end through the gap, but couldn't manage the aft. There I stood, in the chill and darkness, hissing at this beast in the hopes that it would go without injury, and the beast was wedged like Winnie the Pooh after his visit to Rabbit. The possum tugged and tugged at the downspout, in the hope that it would be able to pull the rest of itself through the space between ballisters.
Finally, after several long minutes, the opossum managed to twist a hip just right to free itself, and it scurried away into the nearby bushes, where it sat and scowled at me for a few breaths before moving on.
It took almost a half hour for me to get the cats calmed down enough that I could rearrange the furniture sufficiently to prevent a recurrence of last night's tussle. Now, the rail must be passed from above, or a critter needs to be so small it can pass through a gap the size of a small kitten.
Non possum.
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