Everything What’s Wrong Of Possums: It’s All Of Them -The Toast

Everything What’s Wrong Of Possums: It’s All Of Them

ByDaniel Mallory Ortberg

on May 12, 2016 in Animals

You’re a NIGHT-RAT-BOY the size of ONE POINT FIVE CATS, you have mistooken up entirely the size your species is supposed to be, and your head is too much a circle at the back end and a point at the front part, like a drawing of an ice cream cone in a clown’s hand. I don’t care for that. Be a cat or be a rat but don’t be one of both. Or at least be a cat the size of a mouse if you’re going to do that.

You’re like the Joker of animals but not even an original Joker, you’re the Halloween guys who dressed up as Heath Ledger so much ten years ago, but you have real knives in your mouth??

Your body’s always wearing FINGERLESS GLOVES, you’ve got fur on your forearms and yet NAKED FINGERS

plus there’s your slithery nude little shit-tail; I hate it

People want to mix you up with the okay-looking thing what’s in Australia. I’m not talking about Australia, I’m talking about you. Why are you always waddling across my porch smiling like Templeton from Charlotte’s Web? I didn’t invite you over.

WHY DON’T I KNOW WHAT YOU EAT? QUICK TIME GUESS: WHAT DOES A POSSUM EAT. YOU HAVE NO IDEA, AND NEITHER DO I. IS IT FRUIT? IS IT…NIGHT DIRT? IS IT OTHER RATS?

you lack gravitas you assed hole

MY FULL ENTIRETY OF A REACTION TO YOU CAN BE SUMMED UP THUSLY AND FOLLOWING: SHAVEN’T, NOT AS IN SHAVE-ENT BUT RHYMES-WITH-HAVEN’T. SHAVEN’T. I SHAVEN’T YOU. SHAVEN’T. YOUR WHOLE ENDEALMENT, I DON’T PRIZE.

you clarve holes into the dirt and hide yourselves there, dirt is only to live in once you’re dead and you are angering Hades

YOUR TAIL IS FULL OF THOUGHTS AND INTENTIONS AND YOUR MOUTH IS FULL OF MURDER

your fur is like Muppet fur and I don’t appreciate it

your babies clutch up on your back like a nest of pest-pellets and they cratchle-scrabble onto your skin with their little fist-knives which is not how babies should behave, babies oughtn’t to grasple-snatch, human babies don’t permanently breast-feed with their teeth and nails, you little vampire tots

the sound I always feel like you are making when I happen upon your lurkment patch is “SKEHHHH” and I don’t want you around me ever

Mallory is an Editor of The Toast.

Comments (519)

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+71 Vote up Vote down

RudyRed 124p · 463 weeks ago

It is, in fact, all of them.

+367 Vote up Vote down

CleverManka 143p · 463 weeks ago

Possum appreciation collection for dissenters here.

38 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+107 Vote up Vote down

PaigePoo 111p · 463 weeks ago

....smiling like Templeton from Charlotte’s Web

*dies screaming*

3 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+341 Vote up Vote down

BobOfSeals 138p · 463 weeks ago

"YOUR WHOLE ENDEALMENT, I DON’T PRIZE."

My new go-to response for online dating, I think?

5 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+38 Vote up Vote down

thebellewitch 122p · 463 weeks ago

Night dirt! Yes, that feels very factual.

+182 Vote up Vote down

sarahgundle 127p · 463 weeks ago

I am convinced possums are just anger rodents who scavenge on dreams

5 replies · active 462 weeks ago

+103 Vote up Vote down

LacaunaKale 128p · 463 weeks ago

But, when I posted on twitter about my mother briefly having had a pet possum, Stephanie Beatriz faved it. So there.

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+143 Vote up Vote down

Tab Atkins Jr. · 463 weeks ago

Fun thing: possums are basically immune to disease, poison, and injury. My wife's a wildlife vet, and she's seen possums survive horrifying things that would kill any decent species twice over.

7 replies · active 444 weeks ago

+71 Vote up Vote down

dreadfulwind 156p · 463 weeks ago

Okay, but there is no way that one possum = 1.5 cats unless they have invented a cat that is lighter and more portable than the gigantic beastie that lives in my home.

15 replies · active 461 weeks ago

+37 Vote up Vote down

illyria83 116p · 463 weeks ago

YES. I am so here for this one.

My possum story is this:
I'm still living at my parents' house. Get home first and there's a freshly dead possum with its head split open right at the entrance to the driveway. As in, it's difficult to avoid hitting again when you turn in. No one else will be home for hours and it's a nice summer day. In other words, I can't just leave it or it will be 10 times worse later. Time to get my shit together and do something.

I get a scoop and a garden shovel. I go out to the road and try to maneuver the possum onto my scoop held in one hand with the shovel held in the other. This is fairly awkward but I eventually manage it. Then I carry this scoop of dead possum, muttering under my breath and trying so hard not to look at it, all the way back to the wooded area in back of the house where I finally deposit it.

It is still one of the grossest things I have ever dealt with. I hate possums, I hate roadkill, and I HAD TO DEAL WITH DISPOSAL OF A DEAD THING. <shudder> It was the split head that really did it...

15 replies · active 451 weeks ago

+34 Vote up Vote down

djm527 147p · 463 weeks ago

I love this one even more than the raccoon. We used to find the same grumpy possum hanging out in my pool as a kid and I SHAVEN'T allow that ever again.

+187 Vote up Vote down

dancingbees99 163p · 463 weeks ago

Once we thought my dog killed a baby possum, so we screamed at him to drop it. We then screamed because it got up and ran away because IT WAS PLAYING POSSUM. I've never been so upset/frightened at something being dead and then again at it being alive.

4 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+15 Vote up Vote down

Kate · 463 weeks ago

I see your list of all that is wrong with opossums, and offer you this:
http://www.popville.com/2015/12/the-owner-promise...

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+29 Vote up Vote down

Scared_Vagina 117p · 463 weeks ago

Sublime genius that makes me happy I don't live in a country with possums. Although we have badgers with TB, so ya know.

5 replies · active 463 weeks ago

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queenofbithynia 137p · 463 weeks ago

between opossums and raccoons I don't know because when I was a girl raccoons were the ones would stagger around the house pressing up their bellies and snouts against the low living room windows at night to catch moths against the glass but then again it was an opossum who tromped on the skylight until it fell through into the kitchen, and you don't want an opossum in the kitchen when you are trying to make a pastry or even anything else.

+94 Vote up Vote down

tabbylavalamp 149p · 463 weeks ago

That second picture. Look at that expression. Look at how much your words hurt, Mallory. That's the face of a possum who's just trying to get through life possumming, and now it just wants to crawl into a whole because who can love a possum?

2 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+44 Vote up Vote down

Mavis · 463 weeks ago

I'm from Australia and I didn't know possums had an evil US equivalent. Like, I did know you guys had your own kind of possums, but I assumed they would be relatively benign.

4 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+226 Vote up Vote down

ppyajunebug 137p · 463 weeks ago

Never forget that Taft tried to make "Billy Possums" a thing that would replace the Teddy Bear

36 replies · active 455 weeks ago

+45 Vote up Vote down

raqueue 115p · 463 weeks ago

One night, my friends and I were hanging out in our clubhouse (my garage) as you do. Suddenly, a HUGE rat looking thing came in and ran behind some lumber. We screamed and screamed, thinking that we were trapped in there with a raccoon-sized rat.

My mother came running out, thinking we were about to be murdered, and then had to explain to us about the poor quiet possum we'd just terrified.

NEVER FORGIVEN POSSUMS

2 replies · active 463 weeks ago

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permanentteal 113p · 463 weeks ago

Possums sometimes get into fights with my dog, who is bigger than them but has less pointy teeth. They don't even run when I spray them with a hose. I have to fill a huge pot with water and drench them.
Possums are horrifying rat-knives with ghost fur.

4 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+44 Vote up Vote down

Apfelmoose 105p · 463 weeks ago

Is this series working through the Wheel of Exotic Pets? http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-01/whe...

If so, I would like to humbly request that otters be next, just to see if it's possible for ANYthing to be wrong of otters.

(I suspect it is not.)

12 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+24 Vote up Vote down

CosmicDoodahs 113p · 463 weeks ago

Wait, what's the okay-looking Australian thing we're talking about here? Is it a wombat? Because I kind of mix up possums and wombats and please, Toastiat, please make me feel like I'm not the only one......

34 replies · active 461 weeks ago

+33 Vote up Vote down

laurenelizabethfarquhar 105p · 463 weeks ago

As an Aussie who came here to defend our fairly-cute-but-scary-and-dangerous possum... fair enough. Your ones sound extra silly. And they don't even have adorable marsupial pouches.

8 replies · active 462 weeks ago

+54 Vote up Vote down

houblonchouffe 123p · 463 weeks ago

POSSUMS IS NICE

13 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+130 Vote up Vote down

anthemyst 125p · 463 weeks ago

IS ANY TRASH ANIMAL GOOD ENOUGH FOR THE TOAST

5 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+37 Vote up Vote down

mmmcccfff 133p · 463 weeks ago

It's like if Lewis Carroll was the one who took all the LSD. I love it.

2 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+8 Vote up Vote down

srijanisays 118p · 463 weeks ago

But, but, but https://www.facebook.com/evan.antin/videos/464334...

+37 Vote up Vote down

alice darling · 463 weeks ago

Scariest/weirdest moment of my life: one balmy summer night, I had the main door open but the screen door closed. Little Black Cat was standing at the screen, making "hello!" chirps. "Oh," I said, "is there another porch cat out there? Is that the fuzzy gray rise of a kitty-back I see?"

No. It was a fucking possum.

I live in the city, I can handle rats, I can handle mice, I can handle the variety of mangy cats who live on our porch but do nothing about the rats or mice and are freeloaders generally. But this was a possum. I freaked out. It lived in our basement ceiling for like a month, until our landlord finally brought it someone to catch it. It was hauled out in a cage, hissing out its possum-y evil.

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+106 Vote up Vote down

beakbreath 131p · 463 weeks ago

Possums are doing their level best with the gifts God hath given them, and who among us can say the same?

3 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+122 Vote up Vote down

deenuhh 105p · 463 weeks ago

Possums look like Alec Baldwin when him and Geena Davis are trying to figure out their scary faces in Beetlejuice and I just will not have that. Nope. Nope. Nope.

2 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+147 Vote up Vote down

MsNormaDesmond 119p · 463 weeks ago

"you lack gravitas you assed hole"

Well, it's going to be impossible not to use this in some sort of business communication today.

4 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+34 Vote up Vote down

readalongcassidy 113p · 463 weeks ago

Lookit. Mallory CAN be wrong.

I thought it was impossible-ossible-ossible.

4 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+36 Vote up Vote down

Hunter Bishop · 463 weeks ago

"you lack gravitas you assed hole"

i am fucking dying

+102 Vote up Vote down

LGBTRex 134p · 463 weeks ago

This is the animal hatred post I have been waiting for my whole life.

My college roommate knew how much I hated possums and bought a stuffed animal possum sold at Cracker Barrel (the greatest of the fine establishment's crimes). She then proceeded to hide it in various locations for the next several months: the trunk of my car, in my backpack, under the covers in my bed. You'd think it wouldn't be creepy because it was just a stuffed animal, but it had the right " ONE POINT FIVE CATS" size and "slithery nude little shit-tail" and was horrifying. EVERY. TIME.
My first job out of college, I seized upon the Christmas white elephant gift exchange as they ideal opportunity to get rid of it once and for all. It was the prized/most-stolen gift, and I rejoiced that it had at last benefited me in social capital, the dastardly thing.
A week later, I yelped in horror as I rounded the corner in the coat closet, to find it hanging there from its little shit-tail, and realized that I had inflicted it upon myself in a whole new context.

And that is my possum story.
Possums: they're horrifying even when stuffed animals.

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+57 Vote up Vote down

readalongcassidy 113p · 463 weeks ago

Also THEY EAT A MILLION BILLION TICKS

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+27 Vote up Vote down

champagneghost 128p · 463 weeks ago

i just don't understand how this is not a universal feeling i mean look at those fangs

like at least raccoons are manipulative enough to look cute sometimes but yeesh.

4 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+40 Vote up Vote down

kalat1979 111p · 463 weeks ago

One time we were about to have an overnight freeze and i went out in the dark to grab my big potted aloe plant, and when I got on my porch I looked down and there was a possum in it, not inches from my face. Screamed, dropped aloe, ran inside. Possum was very calm.

+122 Vote up Vote down

beakbreath 131p · 463 weeks ago

Possums are v relatable, for example, this sentence from their wiki page: "If threatened, the baby will open its mouth and quietly hiss until the threat is gone."

9 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+35 Vote up Vote down

Adam8174 100p · 463 weeks ago

Having recently followed a possum pic aggregator page on fb, and being convinced of their general virtues of character and cuteness, it seems like you're on the wrong side of history this time. As a rat owner I can say that you get over the weird hairless tails pretty quickly.

5 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+28 Vote up Vote down

amanita 110p · 463 weeks ago

My most recent possum story: my spouse and I were about to leave for his parents and I was like, hey, take the garbage out, and for whatever reason, he put it by the back door landing with the idea that he would take it all the way to the alley when we got home? So naturally, we came home, there's garbage everywhere (we live in a city: scavengers abound), we clean it up with much muttering and aspersions and blame. A couple hours after THAT, I open up the back door to find a fat little old possum toddling up the steps to look for more garbage. I shrieked (despite my general pro-possum stance) and it TOOK OFF back down the stairs and I haven't seen it since. Sorry possum-guy. That was a real bait-and-switch.

+61 Vote up Vote down

annierebekah 115p · 463 weeks ago

thank you, thank you, can we request an everything what's wrong with squirrels next? THANK YOU.

18 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+17 Vote up Vote down

Vera · 463 weeks ago

Can we have one about the dreaded capybara, please? The one animal the mere thought of which makes a frisson go through me like you wouldn't believe, with its tiny little feet, humongous ass and a creepy, creepy walk (they have it on the Uruguayan two-peso coin. Lovely, very forward-thinking but apparently deeply disturbed people, they are).

<img src="http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/1252819/monkey-punches-capybara-o.gif"

(Hope the gif works at last... http://stream1.gifsoup.com/view4/1252819/monkey-p...

14 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+31 Vote up Vote down

StoatCat 138p · 463 weeks ago

I have decided that all male possums are named Morton and all female possums Mortensia. Such stammering and ineffectual little deathlings, they are.

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+53 Vote up Vote down

telophase 124p · 463 weeks ago

My two possum stories, both from when I lived at my parents' house out in the country:

1) There was a female possum who lived in the wellhouse, which had a wire fence around it because we used to have a dog and that was where we penned it at times. The gate had long since fallen in, and there was a hole in the fence near the bottom that had rusted out. The possum got in and out through that hole, because her vision was so bad that she never saw the fallen gate. My parents used to throw some of their leftovers and scraps off the back porch to feed various animals that came through, and I watched this poor possum pick up half a baguette and try to fit both it and her through the hole in the fence for ten minutes. It never occurred to her to turn it sideways, and she kept bashing it against the fence crossways, until I went inside because I felt bad for her.

2) The same female possum would come up on the back porch at twilight to catch and eat bugs. One evening I watched her through the window on the door--she had a pouch full of babies who all wanted to come out and play and she kept having to stop and stuff them back in. It was darling, and everyone who's been exasperated with a willful toddler would empathize with her at that moment.

3 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+50 Vote up Vote down

Chris B · 463 weeks ago

Cons:
THEY SCRUMBLE WALK THROUGH LEAVES IN THE BACKYARD SO AS YOU WILL THINK YOU ARE BEING SPIED BY EVIL TINY BADMEN AT NIGHT

AND HANG FROM TREES LIKE RATSLOTHS

AND DIE IN WINDOW WELLS

Pros:
but they eat the ticks and aren't rabid so, y'know, that's chill

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+78 Vote up Vote down

mydonkeyfeet 103p · 463 weeks ago

One time I heard a noise in the cabinet under the sink (in my second story apartment) and noticed my cats staring at it, so I opened the door and found a tiny baby opossum! It had climbed up the outside of the pipes all the way from under the house. I caught it and let it go outside. Then a couple hours later I heard another noise and there was a second one! I caught him and let him go outside too. It was a weird experience but they were cute.

9 replies · active 463 weeks ago

+37 Vote up Vote down

amanita 110p · 463 weeks ago

Possums eat RATTLESNAKES, Mallory! And other horrors!

1 reply · active 463 weeks ago

+42 Vote up Vote down

asthecrowflies_ 133p · 463 weeks ago

"you lack gravitas you assed hole"

BRB, updating various email signatures with this.

2 replies · active 433 weeks ago

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exitpursuedbyaclaire 115p · 463 weeks ago

Possums are magnificent. The wildlife center has one named Penelope. I got to hold her at one outreach event for several hours, and she burrowed her face in my arm to sleep, and all was right with the world.

I am interested in seeing if this series gradually progresses through creepier and creepier animals (by general public perception). If so, I'm going to be one of those people going "no, guys, they're adorable, really, I don't know what you mean" until the bitter end.

6 replies · active 463 weeks ago

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halloweenjack64 115p · 463 weeks ago

My own true possum story: in college, I lived in a house without AC, and to get adequate ventilation we'd prop the front and back doors open, and usually leave our individual room doors open as well. So, I'm doing homework, and have my glasses off; I hear a noise, and look up to see what I assumed was the mother of all rats crawling under my bed. I grab a flashlight and look under the bed to see a big naked pink tail hanging down from the boxsprings. I inform my roommates, who I then have to dissuade from trying to kill the thing (because they're guys) until we can coax it into a box and let it go out in the countryside. Had no idea why the possum wanted to hide out in my bed, though.

2 replies · active 463 weeks ago

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