UGH

Today I wish to make it official and declare the opossum as the ugliest animal on the planet. I absolutely hate opossums. Their black beady eyes are too close to their long piggy snouts. They have greasy looking coats and they waddle around cluelessly most of the time. I once took out an entire opossum family of five on Highway 54 late one night returning home from the big city with the Library Lady. As my Honda approached them, instead of scampering on across the road, they just froze and “thud, thud, thud, thud, thud.” Geesh. What’s wrong with them? They don’t have the sense to get outta my way? Do they think playing ‘possum in the middle of a highway is going to save them from harm? Library Lady was mortified, as was I, --at how stupid they were for thinking I was going to swerve off into the Flint Hills at 60 mph just to avoid them.

A few years ago I received a lovely lime green “Possum Queen Contest” T-shirt from Dr. Maureen and her husband Scott. Apparently the strange people of North Carolina have put the varmints on a pedestal and celebrate them. I actually do wear the shirt from time to time, and it always provokes questions like, “Were you really in the ‘Possum Queen Contest?” and “Where in the hell did you get that ugly shirt?” and “Is that a ‘possum or an alien on your shirt?” Hell--opossums ARE aliens!!

Well, as that great southern philosopher Forrest Gump would say, I guess that’s about all I have to say about opossums. Ugly is as ugly does.