The first time I heard this phrase, I was about two or three. No, really. I know most people don't have this crazy kind of ability to grub backward into their memories and pull out something so mundane, but that's my one of my special gifts. Jealous, huh?
I remember it because, well, I recall a lot of the inconsequential, but also because my mother's parents were visiting and that was a rare treat. My Grandfather had led a transient life until he met Elois. When he found her, he had found a home and never wanted to travel ever again. And for fifty years or so, he hardly ever did.
We lived in Richmond, Virginia and my father had loaded us up in our Volkswagen Beetle for a trip to see the ponies do their bi-yearly swim across the river between Assateague and Chincoteague islands. It had been a long day and I had fallen asleep in the cubby hole behind the back seat. I started awake as the hatchback was popped up. I pinched my eyes into narrow slits and peered at the fuzzy outline of my grandfather looming above me. "She's asleep," he said to someone unseen. "Pick her up, please, and bring her in," came the reply in the darkness. I squeezed my eyes shut tight so he would think I was still slumbering. He was a stoic man, not given to hugs and I wanted him to carry me in the house -- a stolen moment for a chance to have him embrace me, I guess. "Is she still asleep?" my mother's voice whispered as we approached the back door. "Well," he chuckled, "I think somebody's been playin' 'possum."
Yesterday, Hud was doing some yard work. He usually packs his large garden tools into one of the rolling trash bins and trucks them off to the garden to work. Imagine his surprise when he propped the lid to find a baby opossum sleeping in the bottom!
Those ears are something, huh?
He called on the Furry Godmother to ask how to help the little guy out of his jam, but I wasn't sure. I got him to call the Lichterman Nature Center. The help center said to give him some water and dog food and shut the lid back down. We couldn't let him out until night fall, because opossum are legally blind in the daylight.
The problem is, that once you feed them, they will return. So apparently, we have a new member of the Andrews family. Meet "Mousse". I think he could use some to get that hair under control. We've surmised that his mother had brought him to the trash cans when they were full and they had pigged out on the groceries they found. We guess him to be about six months old and on his own now. He must have come back to the restaurant to order more grub and to his surprise, found it had closed.
Hud moved him to the shade of the wisteria. I checked on him from time to time, to make sure he wasn't stressed or overheating. He had curled up in the corner on some soft paper towels and napped the day away.
Once, in the late afternoon, I opened the top to peep at him and he jumped to his feet, arms flying over his head, gesturing, "Jeeze, Lady! Let me get a shirt on or something!"
It was pitch black dark when Hud got home from work around 8:30. We tipped "Chez Garbage" over to the side so he could wander back to the great outdoors. Only he wouldn't leave. He liked his new abode with room service delivery. He's having his mail redirected tomorrow. I've been asked to make a decision on drapes and an ottoman.
This morning, he had checked out. Maybe it was time for him to play 'possum again.
