Viva La Poissum

Add caption

A possum is cleaning out the cat food on my back porch at this very moment. Clumsy bugger, I can hear him ramming the tin bowl against the wall as he gobbles up what's left of the Meow Mix.  

You know, possums have it tough.  In captivity they live only about four years, in the wild, two at best. Their brain is five times smaller than a raccoon, which might contribute to their high mortality rate considering they seem incapable of distinguishing any difference between a tree, a car, or a dog ( I don't know if that last part is really true, but it sure seems like it.).  They also got gypped on their development of the ever so human opposable thumb; they have them, but on their hind feet.  Come on, how do you have a nice dinner when every time you take a seat at the table you discover you are sitting on your hands?  

And then the ultimate short end of the stick; this marsupial has, not two, four, six, eight, ten or even twelve teats for nursing its young... it has thirteen!  I mean, lots of sky scrapers have no 13th floor just because of the superstitious connotations!  So what's it mean for this poor doomed beast to have thirteen teats, with the first twelve arranged not in rows like on a sow, but in a perfect circle around that wicked number 13!! 

Maybe that's why I don't jump up and chase the myopic little creature away (yes, possums also have horrible eye sight and their hearing isn't any better).  I have always had a soft spot in my heart for the underdog; those down trodden, day-late, dollar-short types that America's copper lady has been holding a torch for all these years. 

(This is where the band strikes up the Possum National Anthem, if they had one...) 

Viva la poissum!... et merci au peuple français pour la belle statue!!