Hello, little buddy! Who's your favorite possum?*

Today's title is worth 20 points cause it's a hard one.

Sorry that I have been AWOL. I have been back in Virginia since Tuesday night, then Wednesday I went to D.C. (another picture-less adventure up north - le sigh). Yesterday I returned to work and found that I had a lot of work to do! Who would have thought, take a week off and come back to a lot of work...odd, I know.

For some reason the last thing I wanted or needed to do when I got home was to write in my blog. So I apologize for my lack of attentions.

I wanted to write yesterday actually, to be honest I felt like I should start writing or I would have a mega entry one day. Either that or you would just never hear about how my trip went. But something happened yesterday that causes me to forget everything else.

Yesterday was curbside recycling day. So...going with tradition, I began to take our recycling...to the curb. We have three things that hold our recycling, the bin the recycling people gave us, a laundry basket, and a pink storage tub. The first two have holes to release rain water and other fluids that find their way in, the third had no such ventilation. Since I have been home it has been raining the whole time, and from my understanding, it's been raining a lot here in the past week - so pink tub has a lot of water. I looked down into it's chasm and amongst the recycling debris I see what appears to be a tiny mouth. I have been traveling the past two days, my mind is not whole and firm, it couldn't possibly be a little mouth. I blink, I shake my head slightly, and I look again. Now there is a little mouth, a little nose, and a whole lot more to go with it. I have never really seen a possum that close before, but my mind registers that it is a possum. I shudder, take the two recycling receptacles to the curb and drive away from the pink tub, feeling slightly scarred.

I pondered my particular circumstances while I was at work. I have done the right thing leaving the tub where it was. It wouldn't have been kosher to have placed the tub with a floating, dead possum inside it on the curb. Death by storage tub...how depressing. I contemplated further on how I was going to dispose of this particular body. On my lunch break I checked in with the deceased - still there. I thought about maybe draining some of the water but found that I couldn't even bring myself to touch the edge of the tub. If it had been a smaller animal, like a bird or a mouse, I think I could have done it. But this was like a house cat...I realized quickly that I was going to have to call in reinforcements. I text my friend, Jim:

Me: How much experience do you have disposing of dead bodies? - Sadly serious
Jim: Too much. Why?
Me: I have a suicidal possum who decided to end it all in our recycling tub full of water. If this isn't your thing I understand...oh and we can only pay in baked goods.
Jim: No problem. I'll make it into sausage for you.

Yeah, I threw up in my mouth a little*. But Jim followed through, he came over last night and we bagged the body. I won't go into detail of what it was like, I can't offer great detail anyway, once he had the gloves on and the sticks ready I opened the garbage bag up wide and closed my eyes tight. I also held my breath. I found out last night that Jim wasn't kidding when he said "Too much". He's dealt with dead possums before.

After Jim left my roommate (just one), Anne, and I discuss what could have happened to the possum. First theory of course was that it was trying to get into our trash can and lost it's footing on the slippery terrain due to all the rain, hit his head on the way down and drowned. (I feel like I am rhyming, some sick, morbid Dr. Seuss bedtime story here). Then we decided his stench wasn't the only thing that was foul. Anne felt that someone might have injected him with an air bubble, but the autopsy report stated that there was water in the lungs, signifying drowning. Someone must have come up from behind, knocked him on the head and let his unconscious body fill with dirty rain water. It was only a partial drowning though, as a bullet hole was later discovered. This possum must have messed with the wrong people possums. It's a cold, cruel world out there - watch your back.