The Myth of Wile E

Soup Spoon Gravedigger

Since I only had a soup spoon, digging a grave big enough for a possum was no small undertaking. And wouldn't you know, right as I started digging the possum grave, it began to rain-just like at every funeral in every movie, ever. And this wasn't a misty, just-for-atmosphere kind of rain, either, but the kind of blinding downpour that signaled the beginning of the fall rainy season.

One by one, all the giant machines went quiet and the drivers called it quits for the day.

The ground soon became muddy and the grave tried to fill itself in as quickly as I dug it, like a hole dug at the beach. Which meant that it took me quite a while to dig a possum-sized hole. Which was good, because just as I was going to lift the poor, lifeless possum into her final resting place, she came to.

You knew that would happen, didn't you? Well, I, unfortunately, did not. No one had ever warned me of the opossum's ability to rise from the dead like a zombie or vampire. When the possum woke up I nearly fainted dead away myself.

"Wow!" I told her. "What a convincing performance! Was that method? You really had me going. And I'm not just saying that, honest. I've seen my sister learn to die on cue, and it sure looks hard."

You do have to kind of admire a creature whose main defense is theatricality.

The possum growled and shambled away, glancing back at me with a look that said, "Dahling, I never read the reviews."