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, Carol. I really did weave this one, didn't I? LOL

Karen, Thank you! Rose really is an amazing person and a great sport. She said she wonders why she tells me anything :) She has a German Shepherd. I told her to get a Doodle, but she didn't listen. LOL

Janie, Thank you! That line made me happy too. LOL You would like Rose!!

F, Stop thinking about critters, or you are right, it will happen :) No way am I letting you warn Rose about anything. LOL Mom is ok and was happy to see both of us. Thanks, F!

[Carol and Banjo]

Laurie, I always enjoy the way you "weave" one story into another.   Hilarity all around!   And WTD's up with Verners???  LOL.....

[Karen, Jasper and Jackdoodle]

Oh Laurie, adventures do seem to follow you everywhere you go, and somehow I have a feeling that John's car has nothing to do with that. :)

This blog makes me wish that Rose would get herself a doodle and join DK, so we can get her side of the story, lol. She sounds like she would be a great addition! I can't imagine what type of donut would entice me to clean up bodily fluids from anyone not related to me by blood or vet bills, as a child or an adult, but I'm interested in hearing more about that. As to removing possum poop from Vern's coat, there are no baked goods on earth that could get me to volunteer for that assignment. 

I'm glad you made it home safely and I'll bet everyone else at your house is glad, too! 

[Janie, Jackson and Jilly]

and glad you're safe and sound!

[Janie, Jackson and Jilly]

OMD Laurie, this has got to be the best one yet! The clincher being at the very end how Rose would clean it up for a trip to Dunkin Donuts! OMD!  I like Rose already and I missed you.

[F, Calla & Luca]

Glad to see you are back home safe and sound after the usual high jinks. I hope mom is improving. Rose is a saint not only for putting up with you but for her childhood good deeds. Do send me her number so I can warn her never to volunteer. Oh, and I am glad I went to public school.
I am getting very nervous because we haven't had a dead critter around here in a long time and I know just thinking about that practically guarantees one will appear but I can't help it.