Playing (with the) Opossum

Opossums have always held a special place in my heart.  When I was growing up, my grandma lived with us for most of my childhood.  I can remember anytime we had been out at night somewhere and we would get close to the house, my sister and I would both close our eyes and pretend to be asleep.  And my grandma would say, “Oh, my.  The girls have fallen asleep.  I guess I’ll just pick them up and carry them inside…” and as soon as she set us down inside the house, Ginny and I would pop up and say, “WE’RE AWAKE, GRANDMA!” and she would act so surprised and exclaim, “Oh, goodness!  You were playing opossum!”

It was one of my favorite games with one of my favorite people.

So, imagine my surprise when we discovered real, live opossums in our backyard and I realized that OPOSSUMS ARE NOT THE LEAST BIT SWEET LIKE MY GRANDMA!

About a week ago, Chris and I heard the dogs losing their ever-loving minds in the backyard one night.  Chris went out to investigate and discovered that they had found a huge opossum in our yard!  We thought they had killed it because it was stiff as a board and looked pretty dead, so we dragged the dogs inside and Chris went back out again with a shovel to move the dead animal.

But to our surprise, it was gone!  In the two seconds it took us to herd the dogs back inside, the opossum had scurried off to live another day.

Fast forward to yesterday afternoon.  The dogs and kids are playing out in the backyard when the dogs start freaking out again under the treehouse.  Chris got them back inside and he and Bean went out to see what they had been barking at.  Lo’ and behold, that old, nasty opossum had THREE BABY OPOSSUMS under there!

Chris and I are at a loss as to what to do.  We asked Instagram and the overwhelming response (including from our family) said we needed to… you know… take care of things.  While the other side seemed to think the momma opossum would come back and get her babies.  So, we decided to wait and see if she came back last night to get them.  BUT THEY ARE STILL HERE, YOU GUYS!

So, the dogs are continuously freaking out because there are animals in the backyard and my kids keep asking if they can “go play with the baby opossums,” which I blame on Chris because he was all, “Look how cute they are!” while he petted them with a stick yesterday.  *eye roll*

I don’t know if I have it in me to YOU KNOW, but I don’t want to waste animal services time by calling them out for little baby opossums.  Chris says he is going to throw them over into the neighbors’ yard as a payback for how long it took them to fix the fence we share after the hurricane last year, but I told him not to get those poor baby opossums tied up in his ugly revenge schemes.

BUT THIS LEAVES US WITH THREE ORPHANED BABY OPOSSUMS!

And, let me tell you, they are NOT as cute as I was when I played opossum with my Grandma.  They don’t even giggle when you tickle them!