Forego Pogo

We have a lot of squirrels at our house. We try to keep them out of the house itself, though last year one or more found entry into our attic. They chomped their way through a weak spot in the eaves, and rampaged overhead as we slept, or tried to. So we bought a have-a-heart trap, to capture and relocate the squirrels unwary enough to take the bait and enter the trap. The other day, though, instead of a mild-mannered squirrel prisoner, the trap contained a possum, a big fellow, wedged solidly into the trap. A possum up close does not look anything like the furry and almost cuddly little things of storybooks or even nature magazines. Possums smell bad, they are made up largely of rows of sharp pointed vicious-looking teeth, they have bald and gnarly tails, and ugly dispositions. We decided to release the possum on the spot, having no desire to pick up the cage and certainly not to put it in the car for transport. Did I mention, they smell really bad. Possums do not want to cooperate in any sense. Unlike the squirrels, which quickly run for the nearest tree when the cage is opened, the possum did not want to move out of the opened cage, just wanted to bare its teeth and hiss or growl and look as ugly and forbidding as possible. When it was finally persuaded to exit, the possum had literally destroyed the cage, ripping and bending all the parts. Evidently, possums cannot move fast or maybe they just prefer not to, as it slowly ambled into the wooded area behind our house. And what a sight, its bulky, ungainly body preceded by a hissing mouth of teeth and finished off by its yellowish ropy tail, waddling off into the woods. "Remind me never to go there," breathed Ben, the nine-year-old who was witnessing the Great Possum Release from the kitchen window.