Possum - A dad story

Going through some old photographs recently, I came across this adorable photo of a possum.  I took the photo in Florida in December or January of 2005/2006.  We had decided to take our holiday in the Everglades that year, checking out swamps, doing some road tripping, and paddling.  I had been driving along a particularly beautiful and waterlogged area when we saw some alligators and decided to check them out from the side of the road.  I parked and we walked over to observe.  

Just by the side of the road lay this adorable little guy.  Unfortunately, however, he was dead.  I took the picture because of the beauty of his perpetual sleep, but I remember the incident most for the classic 'Dad' moment it would soon become.  

I walked down the road a bit further to look at the alligators and turned to see that my father was not with us.  Instead, he had stopped to inspect the adorable little possum.  Enamoured by his pointy snout and dainty feet, my father had decided to pick him up by the tail and came walking along the gravel shoulder jauntily swinging the little guy by the tail.  

Actually, little guy isn't really accurate.  He was probably the size of a small Thanksgiving turkey.  Judging by the slight tilt to my dad's shoulder as he walked, he probably weighed 4-5 kilos.  

My wife, knowing my dad as she did, immediately took a step back.  At that point, my dad was still probably about 10-12 metres away, but she knew his sense of humour.  "No, don't..."  At that point she started retreating even more quickly.

I yelled in that voice so many of us have that expresses the unique form of irritation we can only feel when it involves our parents.  It's a tone I never liked in my voice, but this was one of the times I could already tell it was warranted.  "What are you DOING with that thing?!?!"  

Dad just kept coming, grinning all the while.  He started to swing it a little more gleefully.  My wife retreated at a brisk jog at this point.  I looked back at her, then back at dad just in time to see Mr. Possum sailing in a graceful arc through the air.  "Catch."  He landed about a metre from me with a thud.  To continue with the turkey comparison, it was something like the the sound the bird made when my mum once dropped the uncooked but defrosted Thanksgiving sacrifice on the kitchen floor.  

"What are you thinking, dad!?  It's dead.  What are you doing picking up a dead possum?"  My indignation rose in me just as the pitch of my voice soared.  Dad just laughed, walked over to the possum near my feet, picked him up again, and tossed him at the two alligators who seemed untroubled by the old man picking up dead animals with his bare hands.  As the hurled mammal splashed down, the two raised their heads momentarily to peek over at the disturbance but seemed otherwise nonplussed.  [Note: Blog post on the word 'nonplussed' is coming another day.]

I continued yelling things in some odd reversal of parent-child roles...'Who picks up dead animals?  You don't even know what it died from!  It didn't get run over - it could have been sick!' 

But Dad, in all his classic dad-ness just smiled and laughed.