Saturday, August 25, 2012

Possum Tales

Well I should have more to say on the trip later but here's what I've had time to write up so far... 

Well a possum attacked me this week. OK, attack is perhaps a little strong. I was heading out to the fitness center when I heard something plop down in the forest like area right outside our door. I turn my head and there’s a furry critter on the ground! My first thought is ferret but then I remembered ferrets don’t have long, furless tails like rats. My second thought was a possum but as I’ve never seen one outside of a Disney cartoon I wasn’t too sure. He scampered off before I could get a better look (probably for the better!). Later I googled possums and sure enough, that’s what I saw! They look significantly meaner on google then this one did.


I may not sleep for weeks after seeing this. Seriously - they're creepy little buggers!

Who would think possums lived in California? Of course, who would think that dressing a hotel off the highway up as Hawaii and having a forest and river area inside one of the towers would make good sense. Probably the same person who imported in a possum to live in the trees.

The next morning there was this horrible, screeching, clanking noise that reverberated around your skull. Groggy as I was it took me a few minutes to realize it was the fire alarm. We all jump (or rather stumble sleepily) out of bed and start grabbing the essentials. The items that I grabbed, in the order that came to mind:
Glasses
Cell phones
Wallet
Room key
Shoes

I’m proud to say neither my ipod nor my netbook made it on the list of priorities although I would have been really upset if I’d lost them to a fire. Before we can leave the room, the phone rings. Mom stops to answer it (not sure why) and who’s call but the front desk to give us our courtesy wake up call. Because we might have slept through the screeching noise, of course… not! By the time we all got out of the room and over to the nearest exit (thank goodness we were on the first floor!) the alarm stopped. We went back to our room and waited about 7 minutes and then decided to take a shower.  I’ve started the shower and am about to strip when the alarm goes off again! I ended up just washing my hair by leaning over the side of the tub like I used to do in high school and if I didn’t have enough time to shower.

At breakfast I announced I knew what set off the alarm – the possum!! Clearly the man eating possums had been chewing through the wiring. Why you ask? Why to lure us humans out of our rooms – hello – man eating possums!

That night I was texting Rich. I tell Rich that I could talk to him but I’d have to go out to the porch (mom and dad were sleeping) and that I was so exhausted I’d probably fall asleep and freeze and then the possums would get me!!! He texts me back and tells me not to worry, he’s got it on good authority possums don’t like frozen food. LoL. Guess I’ll be safe after all.  

P.S.
After the banquet tonight dad had me stop to show him where the possum fell. There is so an indent in the ground! I think he’s a little skeptical about possums in California but I swear it was there!

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