Dave and possums don't mix

By now, those of you who read my columns are getting to know me pretty well. I have the eating habits of a seven-year old boy, I’m both amazed and fearful of any Bucee’s location and now I’m going to let you know my feelings on animals. I don’t like rodents, spiders, snakes, etc.

I bring this up because my staff here at the News-Telegram is full of true animal lovers. I always considered myself an animal lover, that is, until I met these people. For example, I love my current dog Ivy and I’ve loved all my past dogs. They sleep in bed with me, they are known as “my third daughter.” I’ll even tell my actual daughters, “please feed your sister for me.” When I had my mini-Dachshund named Lola, we were together for fourteen years and when she died in 2019, I cried like a girl in the front row of a Beatles concert. So, to me, that’s what makes me a true animal lover. I thought I had solid “animal lover credentials.” Apparently, I don’t.

Members of my staff were having a conversation recently about having raccoons, possums and other such animals as pets. One just told a story about rescuing a bat. One called me early one morning and said she was taking an injured baby raccoon to the vet. She found the raccoon on the road near her home. I tease them, but I absolutely love that I have people working here that have such enormous hearts, but man, I have to draw the line when it comes to possums, raccoons, snakes and stuff like that as pets. We all love reading the stories in the news about the person with the pet python or pet gorilla and how it either escaped or ripped a neighbor’s face off, who doesn’t love a story like that?

I grew up with two acres behind our house. My parents let me turn it into a dirt-bike track for my motorcycle until they sold it, but the backyard attracted a lot of possums and there began my hatred for them. My Dad would make me crawl under the house when he thought something had died down there. When I’d complain, he’d say, “should I have your Mom and sisters do it?” I wanted to respond, “Could you? That would be awesome!” But no, I got his sarcasm and did what I was told. I was his only son, but my Mom’s little prince and it drove him nuts. Once I had crawled back out from under the house, I’d do a complete body shiver.

One day, when I was about 19 or so, he woke me up and said, “I’m going to work and it looks like there’s a dead possum at the bottom of the pool, get it out of there.” Now, we didn’t have Google back then, but I knew that possums “played dead,” but I didn’t know to what level that went. Our pool was a cement, built-in pool, eight foot deep. And of course, Mr. Possum was laying right on the drain in the deepest part of the pool. I took our long pole with the brush at the end and slowly slid it sideways towards the three-foot part of the pool. Once there, I went into the pool with a wide shovel and scooped it up and slowly raised it out of the pool. That entire time, I was convinced that once out of the water, it was going to leap off of that shovel and eat my face off. Thankfully it didn’t. I walked with that shovel, ever so slowly from the pool to the two acres where I had a pre-dug hole and buried it and then did my patented full body shiver.

Then, when my parents died and we were selling their house, I stumbled upon a possum in an old wood pile my Dad had. I jumped back like James Brown singing “I Feel Good,” and called Animal Control. The lady on the phone said, and I swear this is true, “We don’t do possums. You can trap it and bring it in to us.” I said to her, “Seriously? You’re Animal Control, and if I were to actually trap it, I wouldn’t put it in my car and drive it to you. I’ll buy a gallon of gas and set it on fire.” She didn’t find that humorous, but I cracked myself up.

Here’s something you’ll find surprising. Having two daughters, I had to always be “the man of the house.” They couldn’t see Daddy jump on a table and scream like a ten-year old girl when a mouse or something was in their path, so I’d kill whatever it was, walk away and do my full body shiver. Then while living in North Carolina, I was introduced to flying roaches or “water bugs” as they called them. I had to kill quite a few at work over there because the ladies would scream when they saw one and I’d stand there thinking, “damn girl, I wanna scream too.” But I’d walk up quickly and curb stomp it for fear of them flying up into my face. And the part I really hated was the crunch sound they would make when I stepped on them. So now, when I’m around others, I will step up and squash or kill almost anything and then walk away to a private area and do my full body shiver.

I know my Dad is looking down from heaven at me, rolling his eyes and shaking his head and saying his favorite thing to me, “I always knew I had three daughters.” He was so funny. Man I miss him!