This is from March 2005, stolen from the jaeni journal when it used to be my personal one. It's funny, if kind of long.

Here you see a young Kelly Herzog involved in totally omgwtfness. ;)

So. Today a opossum tried to eat my face off. Okay, it was a little less dramatic than that. But you're hooked now, right?

Afterschool, Valeri, Laura and I were in Valeri's car, going to 7-11. Driving down my street, we pass this enclosed fenced in area that's across from the sump. I look out the window and see... a opossum impaled on a fence? Valeri turns the car around and we pull up to it again.

Many questions were asked: Is it dead ? Does it have rabies? Is it impaled on the fence? How did it get up there? Valeri, do you have a camera?

The solution to this of course is to call my mom up. We call her and she tells me to poke it with a stick. Poke. It. With. A. Stick. That it's probably just stuck up there and doesn't know how to get down. So I'm like: Fine. I'll poke it with a stick.

Laura and I get out of the car, because we're brave (note: sarcasm) and Valeri hid inside and watched us. Laura spots the stick we're going to use, as she's going to go get it, I pause and stare at this thing. I'm about three feet away, when it suddenly stands up and begins to snarl at me from its spot on the fence where it is apparently not impaled and not dead. I made a horrified noise, because it was damn scary. Laura is behind me, screaming. The oppossum is now getting ready to fly off the fence and eat me. We both run back into the car.

This is where we're supposed to make our speedy get away. Laura is shouting: GOGOGOGOGO!!! WHY ARE WE STILL HERE?!?! ... Why? Because Valeri is in a fit of laughter at our misfortune and terror, and at the fact that both of us now have premature grey hair.

( Laura's side of the Story )

You'd think that was the end right? We'd drive off and that would be it? No. There's more to this story. We did in fact drive off and that was the last the three of us saw of the opossum. Not the same for my mom though!

She came rushing to the rescue only minutes after we left the scene because she was sure I'd poked the opossum and gotten bitten and had rabies.

When she gets there she finds that the poor creature is surrounded by: Three cop cars, an ambulance and three cops all with their guns drawn.

She comes running across the street with a box and told them to freeze. They were like: What are you doing here? And she points at our furry friend and says: I'm here for /him/.

They tell my mom that they're going to shoot the opossum because he's so clearly suffering. Meanwhile he's getting ready to launch off the fence again and eat someone. She tells them that he's got good color, forget /shooting/ him and that she'll be taking him to the animal hospital. XD They whip out the rabies poles and catch the tree next to the animal pretty good, but my mom has to rip away the branches to help them out. They finally got him into the box and she took him to Greco's.

He checked out clean, nothing wrong with him other than some scrapes and an eye infection. She said he had perfect teeth so he must have been a young guy too. Then they let him go.

( Conversations with Laura about my mom )


( A picture of the opossum )