Marsupial Spotlight: Opossum (Redux)

You may or may not have heard that I have been spending a lot of time thinking about possums as of late. I want to spend a little time chatting about how I feel about them. It won't take very long. If you want to read the original Opossum Spotlight, click HERE. Now, let's have at it.

I have always called the opossum a possum because of where I grew up. It is a correct term based on my geographical location. Additionally, I just like the shortened version better. The "O" at the beginning always sounds like an unwieldy stretch. It seems phonetically cumbersome. I'll be calling them possums until the day I die.

Back in 1992, there was a straight to video release called "Tiny Toon Adventures: How I spent My Summer Vacation." In this movie, they made a comical reference to the film "Deliverance" but with friendly possums instead of creepy hillbillies. I loved it when I saw it, and I never stopped loving it. I always saw possums in this way from then on to this very minute. This is really saying something because I have never seen them depicted as hillbillies since.

Let's look at the real creature for a moment and try to get into who they really are. Possums spend their days living cynical, trashy lives on the verge of our own human society... and we let them. We don't really like them, and they don't really like us. They may get into a scuffle with us when we catch them eating through our garbage, but at the end of the day, we often let them go on living.

The mothers are often seen carrying their babies on their backs. They have a permanent scowl as they do this. It reminds one of a mother with too many kids to deal with. They walk about the city scowling at everybody feeling generally unlucky about the hand they were dealt. The husband is nowhere to be seen--just a single mother and her clingy kids. Sound familiar?

When a possum is threatened, they open their mouths as wide as they can and show you all their teeth... and they have a LOT of teeth. They want you to know that a bite from them will not be pleasant, but biting is not their first instinct. They warn you first. I get the impression that they just don't want any trouble. Possums will often face off in this way even to very large animals, and if you give them a fight, they will fight back even to their own doom.

Possums will pretend to die if the situation seems to warrant it. They will go stiff as if rigor mortis has set in. Their mouths remain open but their tongue droops out limply. They will let you touch them, pick them up, whatever you like as long as you don't start hurting them. If left alone for enough time, they will snap back to life and walk away as if you never entered into their lives at all.

Possums hang upside down from their tails when young. They are being playful. This is a sign of innocence that is later destroyed by the harsh realities of adulthood. They come face to face with the cynicism of life and are broken for the remainder. I find this very sad, but as with all the above aspects, I find it very familiar.

One last point: When possums are adopted by a caring human family (very rare), they become very cuddly and friendly. They are very peaceful and seem to let the problems of the world drift away. It seems to be that this is some sort of unattainable dream to them, and we all have such dreams from time to time.

I love possums. They are very similar to rats in many ways, but we do not tolerate rats. We do tolerate possums. Live and let live. We hate them, yet we live with them. We fight them sometimes, but we ultimately give them room. We kill them often, but it's usually an accident. If a roadkill possum could speak, it would say, "Well, I was heading towards death anyways, so why the hell not?" Maybe, you did them a favor.

I'm not trying to bring you down. I love these guys more than I can properly express. I've even written a number of songs about them. I bought a banjo so I could learn to make music for them. They represent to me a strong redneck force in our country--as strange as that may sound. Live and let live. Take care of business even if the world doesn't seem to favor you. It's my life and I'll do what I damn well please. Possums. These are possums. And as nasty as they may look, they probably feel the same way about you... and that's okay apparently.

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