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]

Thanks, Shoney and Ruby! She is a great friend, too!

Joanne, LOL...your comments are the best. I would love to see that image.

Ricki, We all need a Rose on a trip. She makes the time fly! I think John is just Selective Hearing challenged :) When I open my mouth, his ears shut down. Tell Tara to just think of Vern as very manly. LOL

DJ, Thank you, although I wasn't laughing when it happened :) LOL

Lonnie, Thank you! It was a weird thing to happen.

Charlotte, Thank you! Oh yuck...I am so glad this is their first possum catch and hopefully, last :) I turned the lights on now and bang on the windows to give them a head start. LOL

[Shoney & Ruby]

I laughed so hard! Your friend Rose sounds like such a great storyteller.

[Joanne ~ Spud*]

Is this why Vern is in Jail now?   I just saw him underneath a room full of hanging bulbs. Locked in. All alone.

Another thought, wouldnt Vern make a great Giant Possum.   I used to have a Giant Possum that I would send to my husband in email.   When he opened the image it would scare him to death. Long story.

Nope, not smokin nothin tonight.   

[Ricki and Tara (doodle)]

Rose sounds like such a fun traveling companion. I need to find a "Rose" to replace my DH on trips too. He and John sound an awful lot a like. I finally ordered, demanded convinced him to get a hearing test and as I suspected  he is "hearing challenged" in one ear and can't hear out of the other one. The worse one of course is always the one pointed in my direction. :)

Tara and I are still reeling from the news that Vern has turned into a Hunterdoodle. It sounds like he shocked himself as well! Fortunately, you know how to handle a crisis! LOL  I'm glad it all turned out okay and that John has some good gloves. :)

[DJ & Chance]

I just burst out laughing when I got to the possum poop part.  LOL.  Loved the entire blog, and you are right, everyone needs a friend like Rose.

[Lonnie & Libby Lu]

What a good friend you have Laurie!  So glad both of you were safe with the exploding glass and could still laugh about all you encountered!  Love this blog!!!

[Charlotte and Bo]

As usual, a very funny blog.  So far Bo has only barked at any possums walking on the fence.  I did have a dog several years ago that caught them quite regularly.  Unfortunately she would deposit them at the back door as a gift.  That meant I had to wait to see if they were really dead or playing possum before the back door became usable again. :-)  Your friend Rose sounds like fun.

[Nancy, Ned, Clancy, and Charlie]

Laurie, John lets you borrow his car so that 'something gets damaged' and he can then lobby for a NEW car at your expense.  After reading about bodily fluids clean up privileges, I can safely say that Rose and her sister must be Tweedle Dum. Of course I mean that in the nicest way.   :-}    Glad you were back in time to witness Vern's hunting prowess and need for immediate clean-up, or he would probably have dried possum poo on him waiting for you to get home.

[Laurie, Fudge, and Vern]

Karen, I will tell her :)

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Now that I hear Rose has a GSD, I like her even more!