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THE OPOSSUM

The Opussum is a marsupial and marsupials are animals who carry their young around in an abdominal pouch or marsupium.¹ As they have done this for millions and millions of years, they are not likely to stop, no matter how you and I feel about it.² Baby Opossums are born in a rudimentary or unfinished state, from four to twenty at once. They are only half an inch long and smaller around than a Honey Bee. This seems hardly worth while, but it suits the mother Opossum, and she is the one directly involved. She thinks the other animals are crazy for having such enormous babies. So she nurses them inside her pouch for two or three months until they reach a reasonable size. During the first two weeks she closes the pouch by means of special Opossum muscles and you wouldn’t know there was anything in there. If one of the children comes out before his time she hisses, “You get right back in the marsupium!”³ Young Opossums are fully developed in a year or so. They have thumbs instead of big toes on their hind feet and not a scrap of morals. The males are just awful. When cornered the Opossum falls on his side and pretends to be dead, hoping the enemy will consider him unfit for food. Some predatory animals do not eat other animals unless they show signs of life. On the other hand, some do. That is the catch in the Opossum’s technique. Besides, we all know he is playing possum. Those things get around.⁴ Professor Halstead believes Opossums faint from fright and are not really playing possum at all. He states that when they open their eyes they mutter, “Where am I?” The Virginia Opossum is the biggest and best Opossum in the world. He is found in twenty-nine states. Opossums have survived largely because of their arboreal habits. They have lots of fun hanging by their tails and eating persimmons until they almost burst. By and large, there is much to be said for living in trees. Well, it’s too late to think of that now.

1 A few marsupials have no abdominal pouch and are therefore hard to identify. If you have one, however, there is no doubt what you are.

2 Opossums go back to the middle of the Upper Cretaceous, would you believe it?

3 The Opossum language consists of faint hisses, growls and grunts. It is perfectly intelligible to insiders.

4 The Opossum thinks everybody is as dumb as he is — always a dangerous assumption.