The Big-Little, Scary-Wonderful, St. Patrick's Day Surprise

With Holy Week and all, I kind of lost track of time, but somewhere in the last two weeks I told you about getting our furniture moved back in the house from the garage, where we had been keeping it while flood repairs were being done on our house.  When we put it there, we thought it would be for a month.  It's been, um, let me see...almost five months.

Anyway, so we got the furniture put back in by a wonderful crew of guys from Three Men, only they sent four men, which was great.  That was the evening we went to see the Mary Poppins musical.  I guess it was the next night, St. Patrick's Day, that I was walking down the hallway and heard Emma squeal in her bedroom and a drawer slam shut.

I rushed into her room and found her kneeling on the floor in front of her dresser.  I asked her what happened.

"There's a baby possum in my drawer," she explained, grinning.

I did not feel any urge to join her in grinning.

"Oh, no." I said.

She slowly pulled open the drawer.

Amongst the clothes in the left rear corner, there was a ball of fur.  At first I didn't think it was real.  It reminded me of this cat toy we have.  But then I saw its nose and eyes, and my heart sank.

"He's soooo cute!  Can I keep him, Mama?" Emma implored.

"NO."

I hurried out and retrieved a cat carrier, and Emma scooped up the possum baby and cuddled him until I prompted her to cage him.  She popped him inside. I latched the door with enormous relief.

"That was too easy," I thought to myself.  "Have you checked the other drawers, Emma?"

"Yes," she replied.  "I'll look again, though."

I fought the urge to succumb to deep despair when her search revealed two more baby possums.  These two were not docile like their sibling.  They scurried away.

One of them tried to squeeze itself under the back of the dresser, which afforded Emma the opportunity to gently poke its belly and giggle.

After a few minutes of attempting to catch them inside the dresser, one of them made a run for it, charging toward the opposite wall.

"Aaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!" I screamed.

The renegade possum sought shelter under Emma's bed.  After much maneuvering, we managed to chase it into Emma's closet, where she nabbed the varmint with the help of a towel.

Possum number three was flat out perturbed with us by the time Emma got a hold of him.  He grinned his horrifying grin while Emma cooed over him.

"May I keep him, Mama?"

"NO."

At last the three possums were caged, and I took the cat carrier to the back yard, placed it next to a big oak tree, and opened the door.

Returning to Emma's room, I found Emma emptying drawers.  There were possum poops in there.

Gross.

She had hoped to spend the night in her room for the first time since we had moved to Grandma's.  She decided tonight was not the night to do it, especially since we had begun to wonder...

"Where is Mama Possum?"

Emma left for Grandma's.  When I went to crawl into bed, I noticed something on the floor next to my nightstand.  Could it be...

Yes, it could.

It was a possum poop.

"Waaaaaa!" I cried, giving in to a few tears.

Poking around this large open box of stuff I still needed to unpack, I found one more poop.  I feared there were possums lurking inside that box.  I gingerly lifted a pair of my husband's folded jeans.  A third possum poop rolled out and plopped on the carpet.

I jumped on my bed.

I spent a harrowing night in fear of waking to find a possum crawling across my face or dangling by the curtains over my head.

No such thing happened, though.  I didn't hear any strange noises, nor see any more poops.  I guess Emma's three baby possums had ventured to my room at some point looking for their mama.

For the sake of my sanity, I refuse to consider any other possumbilities.