possum on campus

While walking to lunch with Todd and Eric today, we saw a couple of girls in front of us on the sidewalk, coming our way. All of a sudden, they kind of flew away from a particular spot on the sidewalk, yelling. Todd, Eric, and I were confused and alarmed; I was able to discern a word of the girls’ yells: “possum.” I didn’t know what they were hollering about still until I looked next to a trash can they had just passed, and there between the can and a brick wall was a possum. A soggy, angry possum that was hissing because the two girls got too close to it. I got excited and wanted to take a photo of it with my phone, but Eric and Todd were all worried it would bite me. Eric kind of shuffled the possum backward, using his umbrella, so that he was less out of the sidewalk. We went on to lunch where I called my old biology professor, who was a big fan of possums, to let him know what was up. When we finished lunch, we walked back that same way and the possum was still there, so Eric called the campus police. Someone else had called Animal Control, so I assume it’s getting taken care of.

I usually only see squirrels and occasionally rabbits around campus; this was my first possum. Kind of exciting, really. I always like possums because I think they’re very cute; they’re kind of like big prehistoric rats, appearance-wise.