Opossum Adventures

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away, in the grand city of Opossumville, in the subcity Springfield, there lived Dr. Xterminaterdood, and he, for no good reason, hated opossums. And one day, a woman by the name of Mrs. Woman called him to exterminate an opossum that was terrorizing her pet rock.

“Please sir,” she screamed. “Kill this horrible beast.”

“No need for formalities”, replied Dr. Xterminaterdood calmly. “Just call me Dr. X!”

“But please come quick, sir – I mean, Dr. X!”

“Of course, I’ll be right over”, He said. And so, after getting out of bed, brushing his teeth, putting on his clothes, realizing that the underwear was soiled and thus taking them off again, and putting on a clean pair, He dashed out of his apartment, down the elevator, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3 – jumped out the window in his hurry, and came through the sunroof of his X!mobile. He went into full warp speed of, well, twenty miles per hour, he raced to the lady’s house, and knocked on her door, completely out of breath.

A woman, about two feet tall, and almost twice as wide, answered the door. “Hello”, she said in a heavy
Australian accent.

“How do you do”, replied Dr. Xterminaterdood distractedly.

After a long silence, Mrs. Woman replied, “You’re here to get rid of the demon!”

“Yes.”

“Well do come in!”

Dr. Xterminaterdood walked into the house and, almost immediately a musty smell assaulted his nose. He knew this scent. It was the opossum.

“What’s wrong?” Asked Mrs. Woman, and the Dr. discovered he had scrunched up his face in disgust.

After carefully turning his face fully around counterclockwise to loosen it up, he said quietly, “Nothing.” And Mrs. Woman left it at that.

He searched the house thoroughly, and eventually found what he had been looking for. The footprints of an opossum in the dust of the attic. He followed the prints along the side of the attic and found a hole in the wall. He used his chainsaw to cut open the wall so he could get through. Then, to his complete dismay, he found that the hole led outside into the open air. He sees something gray darting over the fence the next house over and chased after it. He pursued it about ten blocks, and finally caught it. Then he walked all the way back to Mrs. Woman’s house, with the opossum scrabbling to escape his vicelike grip. When he finally got back to her house, he jumped in his car and tossed the opossum into the cage in the back.

On the way back to the Opossum Death Facility, he noticed, by way of the rear view mirror the opossum was not moving. He put the car in auto-pilot and jumped into the back of the car. In response, the opossum leaped onto his bald head and began to quickly and methodically disintegrate his scalp with its claws. He tried to get it off, and meanwhile the car pulled onto the interstate highway. If people looked into the car they would see a man with a shredded scalp and an opossum driving along.

That is how he knows, indisputably, that one can still drive a car down the highway with a hissing, hysterical opossum clinging to one’s head.