Just saving lives over here

 I don't know what you did with your morning, but I saved a life before 8:15. Maybe three of them. I don't relay this information to shame you or to tout my own courage. It just seems like something you'd want to know.

It started earlier this week when I went outside to add some kitchen scraps to my fancy new compost bin. I was coming back into the house and noticed my neighbor-friend's sister standing in Lois's back yard.

Photo Credit: Ruthie

"There's a possum," Ruthie said, pointing to the roof of the garage.

Sure enough, there was an opossum up there, blinking away the early sun.

Lois is a snowbird, and while she's away, I share pet duty with her large and super helpful family. Ruthie and I had a little possum chatter and agreed that while it seemed like the possum didn't need our help.

"It got up there, it can get down," Ruthie pronounced, sounding very much like anyone in my family.

I went back inside and got on with my day. Alison has long claimed we had a neighborhood possum - she named it Jerry -  but I've never seen it. 

Not to say that the possum on the roof was Jerry: it could be Roger or Raquel for all I know. I reported the sighting to the Captain, whose interest level was undetectable.

We're on pet duty this weekend. Colbie (an Irish setter-ish kind of dog) and the cats (Pearl and Tiger Lily) are used to breakfasting early. I decided they would want me to come with coffee, so after the first cup dripped out of the machine, I shuffled over next door in my slippers.

Colbie shot out the door for a quick pee break while I opened the cat food and dropped some canned dog food into Colbie's dish. Pearl gave me her usual side-eye as I worked, but Tiger Lily was yet to be found. Colbie came back in and "woo-hooed" a bit to thank me for my generosity. I may or may not have given her more than the prescribed amount of wet food that she seems to prefer over the dry kibble that she also gets.

I settled onto a chair on the porch with my coffee and phone, intending to check the news while Colbie finished her meal and hoping Tiger Lily would surface. Pearl sauntered out to the porch and glared at me to get off her seat while Tiger Lily stared from her spot outside, clearly contemplating whether to come in. Aptly named, Tiger Lily is a killer and supplements her Fancy Feasts with the occasional live chipmunk or whatever else she can overcome.

For a while there, all three animals were milling about with me on the porch - a fairly rare occasion as Colbie is the most affectionate of the three and the cats tend to scoff at her when she's getting a rubdown.

When Tiger Lily darted into the house - it was too much of a crowd for her - I told Colbie she had one more shot at an outdoor visit before I went home. Pearl had curled up in the chair she'd glared me out of, and I had turned to my phone to check the news when Colbie set to barking like a banshee.

This is Broad Ripple on a Saturday morning. Pandemic or not, it's frowned upon to make a lot of noise on weekend mornings. Carrying what remained of my coffee, I walk out there, calling to Colbie to knock it off and wondering what had gotten her so riled up.

Jerry the opossum was sitting on the back fence, giving Colbie a most unfriendly stare and a hiss when she jumped up on the fence. Now this is a picket fence. Not the most comfortable perch for anyone, let along a marsupial at least five times the size of the cats. Lois has put a rattan-like kind of thing in front of the pickets, and Jerry was behind that screen.  Tiger Lily is the only hunter in the family, so other than rushing the fence and barking non-stop, Colbie hadn't actually attacked the intruder.

I grab Colbie's collar and pull her to go back to the house. In an unusual display of defiance, Colby breaks free, sending my coffee flying and dragging me into a mound of wet dirt. I lost a slipper and ended up bare-footed in the mud.

Jerry didn't budge, but I did get an up-close look at his/her needle teeth.

I abandoned the coffee and re-grabbed Colbie, who is STILL barking to beat the band. At this point, I'm pretty sure we've woken the newish neighbors behind Lois, who we JUST met and liked, and maybe the rest of that end of the block.

I get both hands on Colbie's collar and drag her into the house. Pearl, who hadn't deigned to learn what was going on in the yard, was still on the chair. She's the pacifist of the family, and no dope. As soon as I got Colbie into the house, she shot inside as well. 

Tiger Lily had watched the scene from afar. I don't know if she would take on an opossum, but I'm pretty sure she was thinking pretty hard about it. She beat a retreat into the house, as well. I locked up and went back for my coffee cup.

Nonplussed, Jerry remained on his/her perch. "You're welcome," I told him/her, advising a relocation plan should be in his/her future. 

I got no reply but I'm OK with that. The poor thing was probably still getting over the drama. I know I was. I've always felt opossums get a bad rep. They're not the most beautiful of God's creatures, but they eat all kind of things, so I'm pretty sure with Jerry on the job, we won't have snake, mice or mosquito issues. 

With peace restored to the neighborhood and at least one life saved, I shuffled back home. I washed my muddy and leaf-strewn feet and reported to the Captain that I'd saved just saved a life. 

"Well, done. You get to turn your bobcat right-side up," he said.

Jeff is a city boy.  I don't think he knows much about bobcats, so I asked for an explanation. He and his brother James, for a short time, were Cub Scouts, and apparently, when you got accepted into the Cub Scouts in Falmouth, Maine, back in the day, you got a little pin that they affixed upside-down. They sent you home that way, and when you did a good deed, your parents got to right the pin, which Jeff remembered as a bobcat shape. 

So yeah, my bobcat is sitting proud and upright today..

How's your bobcat sitting?