Playing Possum!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Another week has almost gone by and another trip to Indiana for me.  This time I had to drive my aunt home from Thanksgiving and my good friend, Rose, agreed to go with me.  I need to start off by saying everyone needs a friend like Rose.  Twice she has made these long trips with me to keep me company and the time flies when we travel together and the ten-hour trip goes by in a flash.  I am so used to one word answers when I travel with John, that sometimes I find myself saying, “really, Laurie….that is so interesting,” after I finish telling him something and look over to see he hasn’t been listening to a word I said.  I don’t have this problem with Rose and even my aunt commented several times that we talk a lot, which coming from my aunt is the equivalent of me telling someone they take a lot of pictures of Fudge and Vern. The other thing that often happens when I travel with Rose is we almost always have some weird thing happen to us during the trip which, only because we have each other along as a witness, do people tend to believe us. 

 

On our last trip, somewhere between North Carolina and Indiana, a truck passed us towing a flatbed trailer with an antique car on it, and all of a sudden it was like we were being attacked by an explosion of shiny particles.  It looked like ice that flies off of a semi truck after a snowstorm, but there was no snow, and it took us a minute to realize what happened was the front windshield of the antique car had exploded and it was glass that was hitting our car, or I should say John’s car.  Because my van has too many miles on it, John is kind enough to switch cars with me when I have to travel home.  I can still remember his comforting and caring words when I called home to tell him what happened, “why does this stuff always happen to you in my car?” and it warmed my heart to know his first concern was for his car after I told him I could see nicks in the paint.  Sure enough, on this trip, I was wedged between a berm and a semi truck in the far left lane, when out of nowhere appeared a couple of dead pine tree skeletons floating like tumbleweeds all around the highway until they bee lined straight into the side of John’s car.  Luckily, Rose was there to laugh herself silly and stammer all over herself trying to think of the word tumbleweeds to describe the situation, even after I had said the word minutes before. I feel like maybe John is painting some kind of bulls eye on his car that only inanimate objects can see, right before I leave on a trip, in a sick attempt to stop me from wanting to drive his car.

 

The other thing about traveling with Rose is she tells me so many wacky childhood stories that sometimes I wonder if she is testing our friendship to see if I can keep my mouth shut or just likes hearing me tell her she is nuts. Her stories always amuse me, even though many times she is very serious in sharing a memory, and they have the added effect of amusing everyone in my family when I repeat the story to them.  Rose is a twin, so the stories almost always involve her sister and the last time I shared one of the “twin” stories to Megan and compared the two of them to Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum, Megan said she was pretty sure in the scenario I shared, she would be hard pressed to pick which one of the twins was Tweedle Dee.   

 

On this trip, we were talking about going to parochial school and she volunteered the information that she and her sister always raised their hands if the nuns asked if anyone could help clean up a mess.  Messes included all forms of bodily fluids, especially since one fellow student, who will forever be known to me now as Donna Wet, wet her pants every day.  It is the seriousness with which she tells me things like her sister and she felt they were servants of the Lord and she remembers being very eager to help that always starts me laughing.  She then went on to further her case of the importance of being selected as one of the top two bodily fluid cleanup crew members of her school to explain that after the cleanup was done, the reward was a donut.  By that time, I am usually choking back laughter and then she will say very seriously, “I don’t remember anyone else volunteering and surely, they wouldn’t have let just anyone do that job. We were very good students.”  It’s almost always at this point that I try to gently get her to see the light and call her a name from the Thesaurus that means idiot, but sounds nicer.  I commented that I bet the nuns had a running bet every day to see what they could get the twins to clean up for a donut.   I just hope after writing her story out and passing it along to more than one member of my family, that it doesn’t take on epic proportions and become like the game of Telephone in the re-telling and eventually have Rose and her twin cleaning the Sistine Chapel on their hands and knees with their own toothbrushes for a communion wafer.  That would be wrong to do that to a very dear friend, so I ask that you get your facts straight if you mention this to anyone.

 

Now, all this really has nothing to do with playing possum, except that after I had been back home for less than a couple of hours, driving in a car with Rose and giggling about her stories seemed like the better part of the day and I think Rose will agree that both of us love being at home best.  Anyways, I had been home for only a couple of hours and went downstairs to find labels to run off for the Doodle cards when all hell broke loose.  I let the dogs out our back door and they rushed to the side of the house and within seconds, I could see Vern swinging some animal around in his mouth.  I did what I usually do in a crisis situation and screamed for John to come help and then screamed a series of nonsensical commands to the dogs….sit, stay, leave it, drop it….hoping one of the commands registered that I wanted them to stop what they were doing a.s.a.p.  I was also shocked that it was Vern doing the swinging, because it is almost always Fudge and Vern provides her audience.  Luckily, Vern dropped the creature, John came running, we corralled the dogs back into the house, and from the window I could see a possum either playing possum or recently deceased with the cause of death being listed on the coroner’s report as severe shaking.  We watched it for a bit and after a while it stood up and scurried under our deck. 

 

Meanwhile, Vern was shaken.  It was like an alter ego personality had inhabited his body for a moment and done the shaking and now that it was over, Vern was having remorseful thoughts.  We looked him over for injuries and I noticed something like mud on part of his body, plus I kept commenting that it smelled like possum, even though I have never actually smelled a possum up close or sprayed anything on my body called Eau de possum on or near me.  Thankfully, I did not touch the stuff in question and when John got closer to examine it, turned to me and said, “that possum pooped all over Vern.”  In the possum’s defense, my friend, Rose, said later if she had an animal Vern’s size shaking her in his mouth she might do the same.   Good thing is I know if that ever happened, I could get her to clean it up if I was willing to make a trip to Dunkin Donuts.  John put on rubber gloves and bathed our Vern and the next day, I had the groomer give him another bath, just to be sure.   I also wondered if life could ever just be normal, even if you owned two HunterDoodles and were tired from a long trip?  I guess the moral of the story is a real possum playing possum is always better than traveling with someone in the car who is playing possum while you are talking.  I would never do that to my friend, Rose.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Nancy, I love that...very romantic in a farmish way :)

[DJ & Chance]

Wonderful story, Joanne, with a great ending.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Joanne, I love your story. Very romantic in a farmish way!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Joanne, I love your story and the way your mind works :) Like F, I love a happy ending.

Donna, LOL...Rose knows how to keep a secret :) She could probably write some exceptional blogs, but then I would have to kill.....never mind :) My car is now leaking something...I think it may be time to retire her, so I won't be needing your car.

[Donna K & Quincy]

Laurie I love your stories and your friend Rose sounds like she may be able to write a blog or two of her own.

Poor Vern, I hope he is all recovered from the trauma and is smelling better. 

Really I am tired just thinking of all the travelling you have done, think I'll take a nap. Oh, and remind me not to lend you my car. :>)

[F, Calla & Luca]

Great Story J. I love happy endings!

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Okay, I will tell the story especially since you always tell me you love a long story. I met my now husband in the mid 90s and it truly was love at first sight. Sadly, after 3 months, we both had unfinished baggage to finish in our lives and we tearfully parted ways.

Five long years later, we went out again on two or three awesome dates.  Suddenly, he disappeared .... his grandmother passed, etc  

The last time we spoke, he told me about a horrible encounter with a giant possum while cleaning out the barn on his grandmothers farm,   Being a bit of a farm boy, I was shocked he was so taken back by the possum but he assured me, this was no ordinary possum and that he was pinned and too close for comfort by the very large and very angry hissing possum.

So... weeks went by but I did not want him to ever get away again so I made up a fake email address  PataskalaPete@someaddress,com   and wrote him including a picture of a giant possum that said, ...where have you been, or I miss seeing you...something like that.  

I got his attention  :)

The End

( it had a lot to do with his cousins in PA and how he is related to Phil the groundhog and his uncles name and and and)   

Poo Happens, Vern 

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Stella, LOL...sounds like Vern. He is a roller, too! My poor groomer :) Vern once stood up from a roll and had horse poop hanging off his face. Not fun! Our yard is nothing but holes from these two digging. I feel your pain.

[Stella]

OMD Laurie, I laughed so much when I got to the possum poop!! Both of mine are hunters, and have been enjoying themselves trying to dig up the mice/voles/chipmunks running around under the snow! I once had the dogs at the vets and didn't realise until, I went to grab Chase's collar that one side of his face and neck was caked in deer poop (he is a roller). I was so embarrassed - made me look like a bad doodle mom!!

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Nancy, Poor John....my car is on its last legs. John will have to wait this time :) Yes, you have a good point. I guess I am glad when it happened when I was there :)