The Possum Saw It Coming

Now I would call myself a lover of animals, well... of most animals, but there has been a couple of moments in my life that I simply laughed at the tragedy of one of God's critters. Here's an example.

Not so many years ago my brother and I frequented Hwy. 25 between Starkville and Jackson making that arduous journey to a place of employment that required that we come to their Jackson office every Monday (Oh, how we regretted that job choice). Every Monday we would travel to Jackson or to Pearl late in the afternoon and return late at night cruising down that two-lane stretch of highway in the pitch dark surviving on potato chips and coke. We tried to keep ourselves entertained by listening to music, the one not driving studying for tests, or conversing over sports and whatnot, you know, the usual. But that one fateful night, little did we know, that entertainment would come wrapped up in fur and a slithery little tail, crawling from the deep dark forest.

Now we saw many critters on that highway, and even almost hit a deer or two as Timmy screamed "watch out" (Oh, how that made me laugh). But this one critter in particular would have us both trying to catch our breath. As we came up over the hill on 25 we met a possum who just happened to be standing in the middle of our lane. Well, as most people do we proceeded to smack the possum, killing it and continuing to ride on our merry way. A lot of you are thinking, "Big Deal, I've hit many a possum on the highway". Well, maybe you have, but you did not see what I saw on the face of this particular possum.

As I said, when we came over the hill the critter was there in our lane, and I knew we were about to hit it. However, believe it or not, the possum did too. I saw, what I still believe today, to be the look of dissappointment on the face of this animal, and I swore I saw him drop his head and shake it in shame and mutter something to the effect of "Crap", or "Uh-oh" as if it was happening in slow motion (Think the coyote in the famous looney toons). Then came the SMACK and the loud thud of a possum repeatedly hitting the bottom of a car. Most of you, especially the ladies out there are probably thinking "poor animal!" Well you probably don't want to know that Timmy and I looked at each other for a second and burst into laughter for the entire trip home. I know, heartless isn't it. But for one night that possum brought joy and laughter to a trip that had begun so normal and boring. And for that, he/she is to be commended.