The Great Opossum Adventure

I can take a lot.  Not a lot of things bug me when it comes to animals.  However, this one bugged me a lot.  I think I have shared with you that my cat Astro, is a hunter and I believe this is where it all started.

The other night, we had just put the kids to bed and they were out like a light.  Josh and I were in the bedroom putting up laundry. We walked out in the hall, the light was off and it was dark.  Astro was hovering over something, Josh turned around and said "what the heck is that in the floor, is that what I think it is?"  It looked like a rat in the dark.  So we flipped the light on and no, no, it wasn't a rat.  It was a opossum.  Right there dead in my hallway with my cat hovered over it with pride. I don't think he brought it in, I think the cat just caught it because it was on his turf and he wasn't having it.   Josh went to the kitchen to get some rubber gloves to pick it up and discard it.  I can handle usually handle disposing of dead birds, mice, poop, puke, but nope, I wasn't touching this thing.    I just stood there by it, looking at this creature with its evil looking teeth and it's tongue hanging out. Plus, I had to keep our kitten Indy from trying to get to it, because he has to be like big brother.   Then it happened.  I saw it breathe, then it moved, then his head popped up.  I screamed.  Josh came running over and it stood up and bolted.

That sucker was alive.  Looking back I felt stupid.  That's what opossums do, they play dead.  That creepy creature, bolted behind the entertainment center.  Now, let me explain, my entertainment center is solid wood.  It's heavy, we tried to lure it out, but Astro was on point and kept it cornered, and that beast wasn't coming out.  So here we are in the middle of the night opossum hunting in my house.  We moved one of the shelves and it bolted to the other side.  We moved another and found it squeezed between that shelf and the shelf the TV was on.  Astro was in attack mode growling.  Josh was yelling grab a box or something.  Then the thing tried to bolt again and then got caugt in the cords in the back of the TV.

I had grabbed a plastic trash can, and finally Josh grabbed the critter and threw it in the trash can.  We then took it out back and dumped it in the alley.  It was gone.

I'm sure it will try to come back, but I'm thinking it won't come in the house again.

After some research, those critters like fruit, and we have a couple of pair trees in the backyard, so let's just say we've been keeping the pears picked up.

From what I've found out, Amarillo has a lot of opossums inside the city.