It was white, looking like a bleached out ground hog, it was wobbling and waddling its way across my back yard, destination unknown. Meet the O-possum or as we call him in the ole South, the possum. It is hard to believe this critter has been turned into food, he is so stringy and scrawny, but in fact it’s true. American will eat anything that’s chewable, you know.
But the possum has a secret. He is the only marsupial of his sort to be found native to North America. You have to go to places like Australia to find other native marsupials. Makes you wonder how long ago the land bridge from North America to Asia really did split off. And why exactly were possums the ones who had to leave Down Under and head north?
Rumor has it that they kept getting on the nerves of Kangaroos. Made them positively jumpy. The kolas didn’t like them either because they would hang upside down in the very trees koalas wanted to cling to. So apparently there was a meeting of the Marsupial Preservation Society in Alice Springs and the possum was voted off the island—- so to speak, or continent which is after all, just a big island. Apparently the charge was that possums made other marsupials look bad.
For one thing, they were often found curled up in rubbish bins. They were definitely trash and bottom feeders. Indeed, the whiteness of these creatures led to their being called the ‘poor white trash’ of Marsupialville.
I personally think they were banished because of that silly grin. Have you ever looked closely at a possum? I mean that boy has got a grin so wide and so devilish it just spreads the notion that marsupials cannot be taken seriously, should just be shot and eaten, or the like.
I mean look at this picture above. What kind of animal has to hang upside down just to get enough blood to rush to its head so it can have a coherent thought? What was the Almighty thinking when he created this winner? He must have left this one to some of the lesser angels in the laboratory of creation. Anyway, we have far too many of these creatures in the southern parts of the U.S. And since countries these days are always asking for original works of art to be sent back to their countries of origins, I was thinking perhaps we could send all these boys back to Australia where they came from. Just pack up all up on old cargo planes now available for sale at Army surplus, and ship ’em on down. I’m thinking this would be a fair deal since Down Under sent us Keith Gatlin and Nicole Kidman who have grins almost as broad as the possums.
In a recent loopy move by Mayor Bloomberg, someone thought it was a good idea to import some possums to NYC to help control the rat population. Silly city slickers. Have you ever compared the tails of rats with those of possums. These boys are cousins not natural enemy. Shoot the only thing they’d be fighting over in NYC is the best garbage. This just goes to prove, that those Disney possum stories are tame compared to the truth about possums. And I’m not playin’ possum with you on that one.
In our next episode, we must tackle that perennial mystery— sheep. 
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