tell me what you saw, tell me what you saw

I'd been panko-battering some chicken for fucking Chicken Parmesan, a dish I don't know how to make even a little bit, when it happened. I rinsed the chicken bowl and then tossed the water out into my garden, since the landlord hasn't had a chance to come look our clog-prone kitchen sink yet, and I didn't want to chance that any little chickeny bits might go down the freshly-emptied sink. Then I went back to my cooking. A bit later, I half-glanced outside and saw movement. At first I took it to be a cat. Then I realized it was much too big to be a cat.

It was a giant-ass fucking possum.

It was licking at the place where I'd splashed the water. I don't know what was more horrifying, the sheer unlikely girth of the creature, clearly visible in the remaining daylight, or the fact that it had appeared so quickly--so nearly instantaneously--that it had to have been watching me. What else had it watched me do that afternoon? Select a green apple from the bowl on the counter? Chatter crazily to General B? Check out my own ass in the mirror? Badly imitate the scalding wailing in my jam Gold Lion?

At any rate, I ran at it. This proved to be a poor outlet for my horror and indignation, as the possum was not afraid of me in the least bit and did not do an especially good job pretending to be for the sake of my feeling. It sort of ambled away from me, as if it were banking on the likelihood that I would soon retreat back inside and it wanted to be sure it could get back to its chickenwater feast in a timely manner. I'll remind my gentle reader, it had already presumably witnessed me pretending to be Karen O., and Lord knows what other horrors. I act very dumb when I think I'm alone.

However, neither am I afraid of possums. This particular fiend might have been several hundred times larger than the baby one I expelled from our home during the dreamy summer, but I grew up in a household where possums and other minor woodland pests had no standing. I cannot put a number on how many my father trapped and offered to me as a pet for my childhood amusement--enough that I grew bored of them and ran out of names. They'd get into his pigeon coop and eat up the eggs, so he was always catching and removing them, one way or another.

At any rate, this was the part where I realized the possum wasn't going anywhere and that I could, if I wanted to, realistically and easily grab the thing. But this all happened much too fast. I am very much like my father in this regard. I've been trained to it. It has been a problem before--when I see an animal and the much faster kid inside of me (yes, I hear it--keep going) goes "Oh, cool! Get it!" before the rational adult can say "no, that's not necessary" and all the sudden I've got a handful of snake or seagull or whatever.

I didn't grab it. But I could have. And I came so damn close--only I will know truly how close. My hand was inches from its goading, sassy tail. I guess it's not a very good story, coming really, really close to grabbing a giant possum, but on the other hand, it was kind of a profound moment for me. Seeing the ghost of my father's wildlife irresponsibility rise up within me and then, denying it?

On the other, other hand? It knows. For a moment afterward, I stood, my breath clouding in the cold air, looking directly into those shitty evil possum eyes and I knew it knew I was not formidable. I displayed weakness before it, and that weakness was noted. And now I have an enemy.