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My roommate, Heather and I used to live in an apartment the size of a postage stamp. It was cute, with hardwood floors, and granite counter tops, yet it pretty much only permitted one person to move freely around the space at a time. Let’s say I had to go to the bathroom while Heather was headed to the kitchen for some cheese, our living room would dramatically morph into a two person rave as we politely maneuvered around each other to get to our destinations. This got old, along with the thin walls (so thin, I could hear my neighbor snore), and the piss smelling hallway caused by a scraggly old cat who had an affinity for our welcome mat.

So when we moved to a two story duplex, with a yard, and cheaper rent- a party was well overdue.

Since it was the summer and our first official house party, Heather and I went all out. No party is complete unless it has a theme- ours was Summer Camp, to which we outfitted our new apartment with all the required games and activities. For our indoor friends, we provided lanyards, crayons, and hemp strings to accommodate the mild chit chat. For our more rowdy outdoor friends, we decked our brand new yard, with hula hoops, chalk, bubbles, and water balloons. A friend of ours even lent us a kiddie pool to cool our feet, when running around like ten year old became too tiresome. The party went on into the night until Heather and I crashed in our newly appointed rooms.

The next morning was rough. Like any party aftermath there were plenty of discarded bottles, half eaten hot dogs, and a huge amount of left over weirdness created by drunk people: plastic cup towers, beer labels, bottle cap pyramids, watermelons filled with vodka, oranges used as ashtrays, stuffed animals doing obscene things to each other, and a floor gunked up with unidentified stickiness.

Feeling crusty and haggard, I wandered outside to tackle the biggest task of the morning; emptying the kiddie pool. I figured once I was able to dump out the disgusting foot water, I could handle just about anything else this party aftermath could throw at me. I ambled over to the cheerful blue plastic tub and proceeded to peer in.

My body jerked and I involuntarily kicked one foot into the air, my face squeezed into a knot as I flailed my arms around my body. All the while releasing a groan-cough-scream which sounded a little like a dying moose, because there… at the bottom of the kiddie pool was

a dead possum.

First things first, if you aren’t from the backwoods, and your third cousin isn’t named Scooter- you probably aren’t too familiar with what an actual possum looks like. Sure you might have seen one wibble wobble away into the bowels of the sewer from which it came from, but really… have you ever looked one in the eyes?

Two words: No Soul.

Saturday morning cartoons might lead one to believe that possums look similar to the average cuddly woodland creature:

When in reality they look like this:

A mongoloid rat that has been punched in the face.

It was morning, I was hung over, and now I was face to face with a giant water logged demon rodent marinating in my friend’s kiddie pool. I retreated back into the apartment- and calmly waited for Heather to wake up. In the mean time, I decided to look up pest control departments in the area. After trying to contact six or seven different agencies, I discovered: many were closed, a lot didn’t service my neighborhood, and all of them were assholes. 

“Here’s what you gotta do: put on some gloves, drain the pool, wrap the possum up in a tarp, and throw it out,” which roughly translates to “Screw you, weenie girl.”

Ugh.

So I waited… and I waited… while Heather continued her slumber. I putz around the house. Picked up trash and various sticky items- all the while dreading what I might have to do with the brewing possum soup in my yard. At first, I felt sad… the thing died because of me… only if I had dumped it out the night before, but like any grieving person I became angry- really angry.

WHAT A DUMBASS ANIMAL.

I thought to myself, carelessly throwing bottles into bags, and knocking down bottle cap stacks.

OH NO, AN INCH OF WATER… GUESS I’LL DIE IN IT.

How dare this ugly sinister creature hobble into my backyard and create this big hub bub.

STUPIDASS.

It scared me a little bit that possums just sorta wandering around in my yard.

POSSUM PARTIES ARE GROSS.

After pouting around in my living room for a while, I started to feel sad for the creature again… I mean… it was dead… Mr. Possum did get the short end of the stick. When Heather finally woke up, she found me looking rather sheepish and scared on the corner of our couch. After informing her of our newly acquired lifeless pet, she went to investigate. She reacted the same way I did, when she peered into the pool for a better look. There is no denying that a dead wet possum is pretty much the worst things ever.

Getting rid of this thing would not be easy… and I had to go to work in a few hours.

Quick fact: we live in close proximity to the local fire department. This, unfortunately isn’t every housewife’s dream. Sadly they don’t hose each other down in between cuddling Dalmatian puppies. Instead, they work out to Creed and other dated 90s rocks bands, grunt while playing basketball, and rev their motorcycles at 9 in the morning on Saturdays. Yet, my worry of dying in a burning building has pretty much been eradicated.

Being the genius that I am, I figured… well, firemen rescue live kittens from trees… scooping a dead possum from a kiddie pool should be a walk in the park. So Heather and I ventured over to the station. After several attempts, a mild mannered man finally answered the door- not with open public service arms, but rather “who the hell are you” eye signals. We told him about our predicament, to which he replied, “Here’s what you gotta do: put on some gloves, empty out the pool, wrap the possum up in a tarp, then trow it out.”

NOOOOOOO! We left dejected and incredibly annoyed.

Not to be a jerk, I wanted to help as much as I could before leaving for the biblioteca. We finished cleaning the house, delicately ignoring the Possum Soup- Heather taking the long way around the yard to avoid looking at it, while I shielded my face as if Mr. Possum might go zombie and spring to life. We got the house as clean as we could, before I had to go. I knew Heather’s boyfriend would be over later, and we both hoped he would man up- and help (ahem*do all the work*ahem) with the possum. As I drove away, I never felt more ecstatic to head off to the j-o-b.

Saved By the Bell.