One evening my daughter was moving my bed to play with some kittens that were under it. Suddenly, she shrieked “there’s a possum in the house.” Imagine the pandemonium. I asked if she was sure. She said it was under the bed with the kittens. My son, who is twelve, jumped on the bed to see it. He jumped in surprise. We tried to get it out from under the bed. Finally we had to ask my Dad to come over to help move the bed.

I was concerned that the opossum would hurt the kittens. I am aware that opossums are normally harmless, but was afraid the animal would panic and hurt them. It did not, it actually ran right near them and then moved away without even touching them. We live out in the country so we are accustomed to seeing critters. I was not going to shoot the creature just for being in the wrong place. So we tried to shoo it outdoors. We have a dog who was barking all this time. We kept having to hold her out of the way.

She had been barking in a peculiar manner all day and the previous night. I guess we should have paid better attention to her. We found evidence the animal had been in the house longer than we realized. I am surprised the mother cat did not kill it. At last we managed to get the opossum to run back outside where it belonged.