Wildlife was a major part of my childhood, though not always in the way it probably should have been. Normal families had cats or dogs. We had both, but we were not normal. I have already written about our pet squirrel named Skunk, and there is no shortage of stories about the various reptiles and amphibians we adopted over the years. But for some reason, my dad had this uncanny ability to attract opossums. Not just spot them, but actually will them into his vicinity with nothing more than the whiff of a menthol cigarette. For much of my formative life, we kept opossums as pets. Not in cages or crates, but in an old green metal trash can in our garage. Why? Why not.
Years later, and all grown up, my wife and I bought an old house that included a barn with no horses, because the stalls had been filled from dirt floor to ceiling with the most random junk and unusable garbage one could ever imagine. Broken chairs, split hoses, warped and rotted lumber, Christmas decorations from five presidential administrations ago, and multiple unlabeled and bursting boxes filled with every lackluster item possible. Cat carriers. Bags of spoons. The kind of mess so complicated that to envision how any of these materials came to their final resting place in this barn would take more brain processing power than just pulling it all out and throwing it in a dumpster, which is exactly what I set out to do.
Somewhere between a busted weed whacker and a stack of bent license plates, I found a pile of old blankets. Not the kind you pass down. These were coarse, woolen things that looked like they had come from a Civil War yard sale, if that was a thing back then. Thick, scratchy, and oddly damp no matter the weather. All of them looked like they had absorbed years of moisture and were likely full of more mold spores than there are stars in the universe.
I put the entire pile in a wheelbarrow and took it to a rented dumpster. To be specific, the fifth dumpster I had rented in six months. I grabbed a handful of blankets and tossed them in, and when I went back for the next pile, I was startled by a large mound of fur and fluff. It took a minute for my brain to comprehend what I was looking at. I thought maybe it was a mouse or a rat. Then the pieces came together. Whiskers. A long pink nose. It was an opossum. Full-grown. Doing that thing opossums do best, playing possum.
He did not move. Eyes closed. Completely still. I had seen this before. This was not a panic response. This was a performance. Classic opossum.
I figured the most humane thing I could do for this poor soul was to return him to the forest. I backed away and returned a few minutes later with the old cat carrier. Armed with a broomstick, I nudged the opossum into the carrier. He never moved. I shut the door gently and stared at him.
Then I remembered something I had read somewhere. Opossums eat ticks, and just a few days earlier, I had pulled a tick off my leg after walking to the mailbox. Maybe the best thing for this little guy was to keep him home. Put him to work for his rent.
I carried the carrier to the back of the yard, near the treeline. Quiet. Peaceful. Ideal for opossum operations. I opened the carrier door. He did not move. I gave him an hour. Still no movement. This guy was really in character. It was getting dark, and I started to grow concerned for his safety. We had coyotes in the area, and it would not be right to just have him out there in a lunchbox.
I relocated him again. This time to our fenced-in vegetable garden. Nobody had gardened in there for two years. This was my gentrified version of my dad’s green trash can. It was secure and filled with bugs. I opened the door again and left. I felt good for saving a life and hopefully taking the lives of countless ticks. I had rescued an animal, and I had reconnected with some childhood trauma.
The next morning, I went out to retrieve the carrier and set out some water, should he still be in the garden, although he best have been at work.
But there he was.
Same position. Same closed eyes. Same limp pink tongue.
And that was when I realized the truth.
He was not playing possum.
He had not been playing possum.
I had spent the past twenty-four hours lovingly relocating, protecting, and sharing all of my dark secrets with a dead opossum.
I buried him in an unmarked grave in the back and said a few quiet words. Mostly complaints about the mess in the barn.
I have not been bitten by a tick since.