Playing Possum

So my lovely and beautiful wife went away this past weekend for what has become our annual February weekend getaway without the kiddies. This year, as with most, we dumped the two rugrats and the dog off with the in-laws. The in-laws have been very great to us, considering they live about 2.5 miles away, so we use them some regularly to watch the kiddies but try not to take advantage of them.

They are also very good about not calling when we are away, unless there is a real emergency or problem. For example we went away a few years before ago, before our daughter was born, and left our son with them for the weekend. When we returned, we found the boy on their couch looking like something the cat had dragged in. As can happen with little kids, he had caught a pretty bad cold over the weekend with a bit of a fever, and aside from him being a bit miserable, there was not a lot we could have done from where we were, and there was absolutely no reason for us to come home early to take care of him. So we never knew he was under the weather until we got home.

Now, fast forward to this weekend. We are out to dinner about 1.5 hours after we left and the cell phone rings. Uh oh.

Ok, so when we were leaving the dog was in the back yard barking, and we did not pay attention since dogs bark all the time, we are off the clock, not our problem. We figured we would not worry about. Apparently Sasha continued to bark quite aggressively for at least an hour, and refused to come when my father in law called her name. Not terribly surprising, since she is not a well trained dog (my fault), but he finally goes outside to investigate what is going on. Sasha had cornered a possum in the yard, the possum is showing teeth and the dog is barking so neither is willing to give any ground in this standoff, both being rather unintelligent animals.

My father-in-law then goes and retrieves a broom in an effort to shoo the possum away and break up the stand-off. Sure enough the possum starts to run after sufficient provocation from the broom. Before my father-in-law can do anything, Sasha, who is part lab, part husky jumps, springs, pounces onto the Possum and apparently breaks it neck, since it is now laying dead in the yard. It is odd, since there is no blood, but you figure a 50 pound dog who has some hunting traits might know how to kill instinctively. They pick up the possum with a shovel, put him in a plastic bag, and put a piece of wood on the bag so other critters would not get at the carcass. Finally, the in-laws call animal control to have the possum picked up in the morning and tested for rabies, then call it a night. Ultimately no harm no foul. The dog appears to be fine, so my wife hangs up and we finish our dinner and continue on our weekend getaway.

So Saturday morning, we receive a call from my mother-in-law saying that the mystery continues, and please call her back, which we obviously do.

Well it seems the possum was, well, playing possum.

When they woke up and went outside to check on the situation, the possum was gone. There was no bite marks on the bag, apparently it pretended to be dead or wounded to get itself out of the situation, and when everyone finally left it alone, it simply moved the log off the bag and went on his merry way.

Needless to say we got a good laugh out of it for the rest of the weekend, and hopefully so did you.