For your own edification...

[rootofnewt]

This post is a lesson for explodingcat, who apparently didn't learn this kind of stuff in suburban schools.

This is a cat.
This is not.

The cat has a furry tail or no tail.
This is not a furry tail.

A cat has furry paws and likes to brush against things.
This has little pink hands and likes to dig between deckboards.

The cat has a compact face and jumps gracefully.
This has a narrow nose and has to scrabble and heave itself up onto the deck.

Now, I love you lots, explodingcat, but when one sees an opossum, one does not usually squeal delightedly: "OOOOH! BIG CUTE RAT!"

Yes. Your "pet" opossum is adorable and beady-eyed. I know you want me to install a bar so you can see it hang upside down by its tail. However, the opossum is a wild animal with sharper teeth than your feral cat.

Comments

[red-frog.livejournal.com]

We got a baby opossum in the house one time. I'm not sure how it got in--perhaps one of the cats brought it in through the back window--but while hanging out in the living room one summer evening we realized that the thing that had just ran across the floor in a distinctly un-catlike way was not, in fact, Nikita pretending to be a ferret.

One box, broom, and terrified opossum baby later we released it into the woods. I'm just glad that we got Baby, not Mommy. An adult would not have been fun to evict.