I accidently hit a possum with my car the other night. It was terrible! The poor thing jumped out in front of my car and I didn't have time to stop. As I glanced back, I noticed that the poor thing was still moving (tail spasmatically flicking, head feebly stretching), so I turned the car around and went back to help it (I think I had some vague notion about taking it to an animal vet place at 11:30pm at night), but by the time I got back to it, 3 other cars had hit it, and the poor thing was dead. It was horrible. A big pool of blood and fur everywhere. I felt terrible! .... Only, I didn't quite feel as terrible as I knew I was supposed to, because an itsy bitsy tiny part of me was glad that I didn't have to find an animal vet place at 11:30pm at night!
Could I be any less horrible?!
*gasp*
xo Tammy
PS. It just occurs to me that possums are marsupials, and therefore don't exist outside of Australasia... so for those who would like an opportunity to learn and grow, please take advantage of the weblink (that I've just figured out how to use) in the earlier part of this sentence :)
PPS. I just ran the spell check, and it didn't pick anything up.... that's never happened to me before.... I can only assume that the spell check is broken.....
10 comments:
I'm glad it was a wild animal instead of someone's pet. I've never hit an animal (that was big enough to notice.)
How come I think possums play dead?
Hmm...I encountered something similar to an opossum last night in a parking lot. But you say there's none outside of the Australia area.
So what did I almost hit?
(I only missed it due to parking lot speed. But it was scary!)
Oh, and good job with spelling. I couldn't even get through a simple comment.
I'm not sure about the 'possums play dead' thing - I've never heard this before! Pretty sure this one wasn't playing though: There was a bump and a crunch, frantic attempts by the injured possum to move, followed by the headlights of three more cars who most certainly finished it off! Again I say - how horrible!
And SallySue: according to wikipedia, possums and opossums are different animals - but they look similar... :)
You poor thing! I hit a cat once and felt horrid for days. However, I wasn't as nice as you, I didn't try to see if the thing was still alive.
P.S. I've seen possums in Florida...do you think they somehow made the journey from the southern hemisphere or do I just not know what a possum is? Wait, I looked it up and we have opossums in N. America, not possums. How is that possible? I always thought they were one and the same!
'Playing possum means playing dead. Possums have few defenses against predators. One of these is to play dead so whatever is attacking them will give up and go away.
'With humans:
If someone knocks on your front door and you don't want to talk to them you pretend to be absent or asleep. That's playing possum.
When your mum calls you for school and you don't want to get up you pretend to be asleep in order to get that extra rest or to delay getting up for school. That's playing possum.'
Couldn't have put it better myself. I love Google!
xx
I am always glad when I find out I'm not crazy and making stuff up myself. I am constantly "playing possum" when it comes to people knocking on my door, or calling me on the phone, or Reuben. (but with Reuben its because he is on a sleeping beauty kick so he gives me kisses until I come back to life.)
Aw I hit a possum a year or two ago, and I nearly cried! It's all very well and good not to be fond of animals, but doesn't it feel awful to hurt something living?! Ugh. Anyway, mine got up and ran away again, which proved to be life-saving in comparison to your possum playing dead! :(
What about Anatoli's cannibalistic possum?! Eek! :)
Mum is so mum!!! :)
xo
PS: I finally wrote on my blog - like, 3 entries because if it were one big one, it would seem more boring...
Wow, who knew a letter made such a difference. Possums versus opossums.
Too bad I think possum is a cooler word. Poor America.
I just think its hilarious that tammy used wikipedia!
...oh wait, no scratch that. I forgot Tammy, you're the one who likes it. doh, there goes my fun buzz :S
Anyway, another story along the lines of killing innocent creatures...I was driving back from a party one night with a friend of mine. it was a long, dark road and suddenly out of nowhere, a possum bolted across the road!! Before I even knew what was happening, we crashed into the poor animal at a tremendous speed (no speed jokes please - i wasn't the one driving!)
Anyway, just as I let out a terrible, grief-stricken cry my friend started guffawing louding.
i was SHOCKED!
i looked back at the dark lump on the road and decided to never forgive him. I couldn't believe his heartlessnes - laughing!
Unfortunately however, the next day, right after talking to him about it again...I ran over my own possum on the way home.... :S:S:S:S:S
my bad
We had possums in Pasadena. Go figure!
When you think of them as large rodents, it's probably a GOOD thing you and those people hit it. :)
I have a hard heart.
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