As we drove home from campus this evening, we came across this huge opossum sitting in the middle of the road. He looked a bit scruffy, like he hadn’t had time to groom himself after a long sleep. He also didn’t quite seem to have all of his wits about him yet. For a while he didn’t seem to know exactly what he wanted to do, as we sat and looked at him. Finally he decided that running away might be a good idea. But his idea of running away was to run exactly along the yellow lines. Never mind getting off the road. So we got a long, rather amusing look at his rear end bobbing up and down. He followed the lines very accurately, though. At least he wasn’t drunk.
– Sydney
Alan Schmierer
I’ve only seen a live opossum once. And then it got hit by a car. It was really sad. They don’t seem to be the brightest of creatures… Or maybe they have an affinity for yellow lines…
-L
I invited my city friends from Illinois to visit my in Iowa, trying to convince them that Iowa really wasn’t as backward as they thought… On the first night they arrived, I turned on the light to let our dog out to the backyard, and staring right back at me was a snarling possum that was literally foaming at the mouth (less than 4 inches from the door).
It was a great moment. “No, I swear that’s the only time I’ve ever seen a possum by our house… usually we just see them dead by the roadside…”
…a bit scruffy…didn’t have all his wits about him…yep, that’s an opossum:) He was probably as pretty as he will ever be. I recall my favorite science instructor said that opossums don’t really have a brain, the mass is more a bundle of nerves for different functions. Despite that, they seem to thrive. They are an amusing animal…the rear end view no doubt elicited chuckles:)