That was freakin' weird

I'm glad I'm a creature of habit.

Most nights, when I get home from work, I check to see whether the nice UPS man left me anything out in front of my house - I leave through the garage, out the back.

Well, usually I flick on the patio light - there's a patio to the right of my front door and a little deck that runs along the front of the house - and see if there's anything out there. It's sheltered, so sometimes the UPS guy or mailman leaves something down there instead of in front of the door, which is more visible to anyone walking by.

Anyway, tonight, when I flicked the light on and looked through the glass door, there was something looking back at me. Something slightly larger than my dog. And furry.



I think it was a possum. But I've never seen a live one that I wasn't trying to swerve my car around before.

I stuck my head out the front door - CAUTIOUSLY! - and tried to take a picture with my cell phone, but it didn't turn out, despite the flash, and the possum, perhaps as surprised to see me as I was to see it - and possibly freaked out by all the exterior lights on my house going on at once, ran away before I could try again.

I'm glad I just didn't pop the porch light on and walk outside, like I sometimes do, because then the possum would've been trapped on the patio, with me in the way of escape.



And I'm pretty sure that's how the Crocodile Hunter bought the farm.

Would've been my luck, going for a second picture, to get bitten by a possum. I think they can have rabies, too. That would've ruined my day. And imagine calling in sick that way.

"Hey, Dave, you're not going to believe this, but I can't come in. I got bit by a wild animal..."

Sigh.

That was, as the title said, freakin' weird. I mean, I live out in the country, or at least former country - I've even seen deer in my cluster's driveway - but I've never seen a possum that close. At least, like I said, not without a ton of Japanese steel between me and it.

And it was a lot bigger than I thought it would be.

Still, picture a 200-pound Asian guy, leaning very carefully out the front door of a townhouse in the middle of a giant development, and trying to take a picture of a 20-pound (estimated) furry animal with a cell phone camera at 12:30 in the morning.

All I was going to do was have a snack, maybe write a Raiderfans.net column, then watch a movie or something.

Didn't plan on starring in "Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom."