August 30, 2010

• Possum eviction

  This weekend, my friend Ann came to visit from Charleston, SC. Ann and her husband, Erik, were here in May, when he had a Navy assignment in SoCal, and we had a blast. This time, Ann came out for some girly fun time (and bonus, this time the O'Neals weren't all sick!). The weekend went by in a flash of excellent company, great food, and lots of laughs. Perhaps the greatest source of those laughs was what I'll call the Great Possum Eviction of 2010.

  Last week, Johnny and I began to suspect that there was an animal holed up in our detached garage. There's a side door leading from our yard into the garage, and sometimes (OK, often), I forget to close it as I come into the yard, because my hands are usually full with kids and groceries. It's not a security risk, because the big garage door is always closed, and the side gate into our yard is closed. No one can get into the yard just because the side door connecting the yard and garage is open. I try to make sure it's closed overnight, to prevent animals from accessing the garage, but most of last week, the door was left open at night. I thought, what's the big deal? It's open half the time at night, and nothing's ever happened.

  Well, mid-last week, there were a few times when Atari barked urgently in the night. After checking the doors, we told him to be quiet. One time, I heard a strange noise from outside, but thought it had come from the neighbor's yard. Friday morning, I went into the garage to get some milk from our spare fridge, and there were two puddles of pee and a pile of poop in the corner. At the time, we thought a cat had been the culprit. I know cats don't usually poop outside their litter box, but nothing in the garage was disturbed -- whatever it was didn't even get into an open bag of dog food. Anyway, we didn't see signs of the animal in the garage anymore, so we figured it had left during the night. No big deal, right?

  Wrong! Saturday morning, despite the side door being closed Friday night, I went into the garage to see a holy mess. Stuff was knocked everywhere (but again, no food packages were opened, and the dog food was undisturbed), and there were three piles of poop -- big piles -- and one giant pee puddle in the garage. One of the poop "gifts" was on top of some metal shelves. And, most bizarre of all was that the animal had taken some poop in its paw and swiped it sideways on the back of the side door. SIDEWAYS! Ann and Johnny's first thought was: Do we have a monkey in the garage? The swiping just looked so purposeful, and it was sideways, instead of up and down. The width of the paw was pretty sizeable, too. We also thought it looked like the handiwork of a small child, but obviously that wasn't the answer, either. (For the record, I did make fun of them for thinking it was a monkey.) Ann and Johnny went all CSI, looking around for the animal and taking pictures of the poop piles. They even put a tape measure next to one of the piles, and photographed paw prints that the animal had left after it stepped in its own pee. We have this whole gallery of the "crime scene photos." After recording all the evidence (and cleaning up the mess -- Johnny did most of that, Ann helped, and I stayed inside), our thoughts were:

  1. Some nocturnal animal did this.

  2. It's probably not a cat (although I really dislike cats, so I was looking to blame a cat).

  3. It's not a dog.

  4. Is there an illegal pet monkey on the loose?

  Saturday night, Ann and I went out with another of her friends who lives in the area. We returned around 11 p.m. Ann said, "Hey, let's look in the garage." She opened the side door, then screamed and pulled it shut again. I screamed because she screamed (and she's not easily frightened!), and then we both heard a loud clatter coming from within the garage. We called for Johnny to come outside. He brought a flashlight with him and then opened the big garage door. He shone a light on the wall from which we'd heard the clattering, and lo and behold:

  Our unwanted visitor:

  

  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, there was a giant possum on that ladder.

  It was freaking mean, too! Lookit those teeth!

  

  All three of us screamed when we saw it staring at us with those red eyes. (Pardon me. Ann and I screamed while Johnny remained perfectly calm and said, "Step aside, ladies, and let me wrangle this rodent with my bare hands.")

  It was too late to call Animal Control, and now that we'd disturbed the possum, we were afraid that it would really wreak havoc in the garage if we left it alone. We were determined to get it out.

  First, Johnny and Ann took turns poking it with a broomstick. (I hid behind Ann and squealed occasionally.) The possum looked positively bored by our unsuccessful attempts. Johnny had the idea of going to get Atari. We thought this was a brilliant idea. Yes! Get our loyal, fierce, brave Japanese hunting dog! That'll show the possum! Johnny brought Atari in to the garage, but Atari didn't seem to detect anything unusual. So, Johnny picked Atari up so that he could see the possum. We envisioned that Atari would snarl and leap out of Johnny's arms, slashing his teeth at the possum and enjoying himself a midnight snack.

  Instead:

  

  Yes, that's right. Atari brought shame upon Shibas everywhere by recoiling in fear and shaking like a leaf. I'm not sure, but I think the possum laughed. We quickly let Atari back into the house, whereupon he immediately retreated into our bedroom and threw up a little on the floor. Yup, he threw up in fear. So, if there's an armed robbery, I can rest assured that Atari will vomit on the villains' feet. We're saved!

  OK, so back out in the garage, the possum was yawning and making fun of us. Ann asked if we have a spray bottle so that we can spray water at it. Great idea! Johnny ran inside to grab one. Meanwhile, Ann said, "I'd like a picture with the possum." All right, your wish is my command:

  Our two weekend visitors

  

  Johnny came back with the bottle and began spraying it at the possum. I realized that the bottle was filled with rubbing alcohol, and said, "Wait! That's not water! It's alcohol!!" (I use it to kill spiders in the house.) Johnny replied, "Even better!" He sprayed it directly at the possum's eyes. Instead of yelping in pain, the possum just stayed still and snarled. It didn't even flinch! It was drenched in alcohol, and it didn't even move!

  Still hiding behind Ann, I yelled, "Let's get the bleach! Spray it with bleach!" Ann and Johnny both said, "Are you crazy?" So my next brilliant idea was to poke the possum with the spiky end of our orange picker. Gosh, I hope no PETA fans are reading this.

  

  The possum's reaction was to bite the spikes, and then growl loudly at us while baring its teeth.

  

  I almost peed in my pants when it growled at us. Johnny and Ann bravely worked together to poke the possum while spraying it with alcohol. My sole contribution was to scream, "Ann, you're from the farm!" (Which, by the way, isn't even true!) "You know what to do! Come on, get rid of it! Aaaaah, it's going to kill us!" This was so helpful, I know.

  Finally, the possum got tired of us, scrambled off the ladder and scampered out of the garage. After 30 minutes, we had successfully evicted it. All of the stuff under the ladder is soaked in alcohol and probably possum piss, but hey, we won!

  We did do other stuff this weekend, but this entry's long already. I promise to post more pictures from the weekend tomorrow.

  • 6:19 pm
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