Monday, February 09, 2009

Rescued!



Last night, at about 12:15, my lady called me on the way over to my apartment. She told me she had been stopped on the street by a weird woman who was trying to rescue a runaway possum. I told her I'd meet her on the street to lend a hand. Hey. I'd never seen a possum.

Turns out they are gross, cute, docile and scary all at once. Gross tail. Cute white face! Gross misshapen nose. Cute beady eyes! Scary mouth that opens too wide. Fluffy bean-shaped body! Kind and quiet. But might be rabid!

When I arrived at the scene, Catherine was holding a large towel and the weird woman was walking around the possum, saying "hi" over and over again in an incredibly creepy, annoying manner that reminded me of the girl in Forgetting Sarah Marshall (which you should totally see). Thankfully, there was some small reason for the "hi"-ing; she was trying to distract the little critter while Catherine pounced on it, wrapped it in the towel and tossed her into a large cage that the woman happened to have in her apartment. It must be said: Catherine's possum-catching abilities were a wonder to behold. She got that possum in that cage on the first try, and with such grace that the possum wasn't even frightened.

With the calm, happy possum sitting plumply in its cage, my fear of rabies was swiftly replaced by my fear of Park Slope hippies. The weird woman had that big cage ready to go because she rescues animals constantly. The number of rescue stories she spouted led us to believe that maybe not all these animals were in need of rescue; it's not like I walk by runaway animals every day and ignore them. How does she find them all? Plus, she complained that her landlord always tries to evict her when she tries to take in wild animals and that he probably wouldn't let her keep a possum. Also, she runs a business where she goes around saying hi to people's animals or something (trust me, this is not much of a simplification).

Without needlessly trashing her any further here, I'll sum up by saying that, as we helped her carry the cage up to Prospect Park (apparently a second-best to letting her keep a possum in her apartment), we almost regretted helping her save the little furry bean. It generated a strange cognitive dissonance to help someone do a good deed and be really pissed off at them at the same time.

Any, we helped a creepy idiot save a possum! And when we opened the cage in the park, it scampered around and it was totally adorable. THE END.

6 comments:

Alex said...

I read "lady" as "landlady," and didn't understand why she had the same name as your girlfriend until halfway through the story. That's all I've got.

Catherine said...

So thrilled I was able to impress you with my saving-wild-animals-from-hippies skills, babe. Just trying to keep the relationship fresh and exciting!

Anonymous said...

Thank God you saved that possum from a delicious trash meal!

Well, slightly delayed it, anyway.

Anonymous said...

Slightly delayed indeed. That fella could have made it back out of the park in about 2 minutes. He scampers fast.

Anonymous said...

I never believed your previous boasting about possum-scooping before last night, C. Apologies.

Anonymous said...

cant believe you all didnt eats! I!T!