Playin' 'possum

I'm pleased to present today my first Guest Post by the original zen mom - MY mom - AKA Lady Elizabeth. She sent me this hilarious story about her nocturnal adventures this week, and I convinced her to let me post it here. Welcome to the blogosphere, mom. :)

So… it actually started yesterday morning.

I came downstairs to find the power was off to my computer and all of its peripherals. I immediately noticed the Garden Gnome (Mr. Farty Pants) was gone.

When I approached my desk, I discovered that the mouse had been jerked to the back of the desk; my webcam, my digital camera and my camera dock were missing from the window sill and the clock was turned around.

I looked behind the filing cabinet and there they were. When they fell, they hit the tangle of wires behind the computer unplugging things and pulling down the webcam and other things. So, I gingerly reached down into the dust bunnies and retrieved everything. I reconnected the wires and the power and got everything back up and running. I moved Mr. Farty pants to the other end of the window sill and blamed it all on the cat. I was late for work.

Last night about 11:00 pm I went downstairs to get some water. I knew that when I went upstairs for the night, I had put the computer on standby so I was surprised to see the login screen glowing in the dark. I approached my desk (in the dark) and noticed the mouse was jerked all the way to the back of the desk again. I pulled the mouse forward and decided I needed to check this out further.

I went to the kitchen and refilled my water, came back into my office and turned on the light. As I approached my desk the second time, I noticed a tiny movement of something sticking out from behind the monitor. It was a very long, almost hairless tail. It was big and long and ugly. I leaned to one side to get a better look and noticed that the tail was attached to something with very coarse spiky grey hair.

What to do? Hmmmm, Ron had been asleep for an hour and a half, so he would not be pleased if I woke him up. I immediately ran upstairs and woke him up because he knows where things are like heavy gloves and guns and things. As he groggily responded to my nudge, I told him I thought there was an animal downstairs and I suspected it was an opossum. He mumbled something about my sanity and trudged downstairs in his underwear.

He approached the desk with much caution and soon confirmed that Mr. Opossum was indeed hiding behind the monitor on the windowsill. He also confirmed that it was not in a good mood and had big teeth. Now we are both standing there saying, hmmmm, what to do?

He went out the back door and headed for his garage. I watched closely and the opossum did not move. Ron returned, still in his underwear, but now wearing his heavy welding gloves and holding a large fishing net.

I suggested that we might be able to remove the window screen and allow Mr. Opossum to exit through the window. However, this was not really feasible because Mr. Opossum was right in front of the window that was open and we couldn’t get to the screen without reaching right past him. So, Ron placed the net between Mr. Opossum and the computer monitor, which only annoyed him.

A woman of action, I ran to the laundry room and retrieved a baby-gate to keep the opossum from entering the kitchen and thus gaining access to the rest of the house. The back door was open in case he decided to do the smart thing and leave that way. We were ready to make a move.

Ron used the net to gently prod the opossum into moving down the windowsill and out from behind the monitor so he was exposed. He tried again but he still couldn’t make any headway with the net, he decided to remove the screen now that Mr. Opossum was no longer in front of it.

Voila! Now Mr. Opossum could leave via the open window.

He didn’t.

Ron, not so gently, coaxed him toward the open window with the handle to the fishing net. Meanwhile, I moved closer and climbed on to a chair in case he decided to run. I was barefoot, so this seemed necessary. In the process, I stuck the handle of the broom I was holding in the ceiling fan, thus scaring Ron and me half to death. Since the chair had wheels, I sort of wobbled and the broom hit the ceiling fan again before I regained my balance.

Ron looked at me sideways. After making some comment about my sanity again, Ron poked and prodded until Mr. Opossum was hanging onto the window ledge with one front paw. One final poke and he was outside. Ron closed the window.

We looked at each other and shook our heads. The cat walked by and looked at us both with disdain. Mr. Farty Pants gave us a blank stare. The window screen could be replaced tomorrow ...