Owens: Don’t panic if you see a possum on the subway
Somewhere in the jungles of New York City, a possum is freezing its buns off because Yankees don’t know what to do with its kind.
The possum found its way into a subway car about 4:30 a.m. on Jan. 13 and curled up in a heating duct between the seats. The train was en route from Brooklyn to Manhattan, and the possum made it to Coney Island before it was discovered.
Panic struck the Big Apple. It was the wee hours of Friday the 13th, and New York City commuters are not accustomed to unarmed, sober, short-haired creatures coming aboard at such an ungodly hour.
So the passengers exited the car, apparently thinking the possum was a sewer rat on steroids. Or maybe they just ran when they saw the cops coming. Transit employees armed themselves with mops, gloves and trash bins in an effort to evict it.
When they failed, they called the cops. They locked the car and transported it, possum and all, to a rail yard in the Bronx.
The New York Times reported that police locked the possum away “after some resistance involving the baring of teeth.” But The Christian Post, a newspaper based in Washington, D. C., assures us, “There were no immediate reports of any injuries to people as a result of the possum found on the subway.”
Those of us who grew up with possums aren’t surprised. We know that the baring of teeth does not indicate hostility. The possum is just grinning. It’s his way of saying, “Please don’t take me home and throw me in the pot. I just came in here to get warm and maybe eat some of these Coney Island hot dog remnants I found on the floor.”
Possums, as a matter of fact, don’t get hostile. They just roll over and play dead. The only creatures that need to be afraid of them are bugs, grubs and rattlesnakes, which a possum can eat with impunity. If those Yankees want to keep their subway cars free of rattlesnakes, they should keep possums aboard.
When a Southerner sees a possum in the woods, he sics Old Blue on it and as soon as the possum plays dead, he puts it in a bag and takes it home.
There he places the possum in a cage. Unlike those New Yorkers, who kept the poor animal locked up for 9 hours without food or water, the Southerners treat it like royalty. They provide fruit and grain for their captive to eat until it has metabolized all the bugs, grubs and rattlesnakes out of its system.
Then, when the Possum is convinced that it really did die and has gone to possum heaven, it is mercifully dispatched, soon to become what Southerners call “the other white meat.”
The New York Times launched a thorough investigation into the ultimate fate of the possum. After checking out several false leads, it determined that officers in the Bronx had summoned “an elite squad that handles complex jobs, including capturing rogue coyotes and apartment-invading hawks.”
Shucks, Bubba and Old Blue could have handled it a lot simpler and would have celebrated with a traditional Southern seven-course meal: a six-pack and a possum.
The “elite squad,” in total ignorance of how to handle a captive possum, reportedly released it into “an adjoining wooded area.” The only wooded area I’ve heard of that adjoins any part of New York City is Central Park. If you’re jogging in Central Park and you spy a weird looking creature lurking in the shadows, pray that it’s the possum.
In my humble opinion, the New Yorkers were doing the possum no favors. It gets awfully cold up there in January and February and the poor possum is not endowed with a thick fur. Even in the idyllic Southland, the average possum lives to be no more than 2 years old, which is comforting to those who use him for food. If it’s going to die anyway after a couple of years, why not make its death count for something?
The truth is that getting rid of possums can be more dangerous than letting them be. I heard of an old-timer who occupied a doublewide in Albany, Ga., and was bothered by a possum who sneaked in for a snack every now and then. After setting several traps unsuccessfully, he finally drew a bead with his shotgun. He blew a hole in the side of the doublewide, and the possum used it as an escape hatch.
I recall another instance in which a homeowner decided to dispatch a possum by dousing it with gasoline and setting fire to it. I digress long enough to say that I thoroughly condemn this kind of heartless treatment for any animal, but the flaming possum got its revenge. It ran straight into the crawl space under the man’s house and set the dwelling on fire.
The moral of this story is: Leave possums alone. They don’t spread rabies, they may eat your rattlesnakes, and they won’t harm your subway.
If I appear to be looking down my nose at Yankees in general or New Yorkers in particular, I ask your pardon. I was just having a little fun, that’s all. Some of my best friends are Yankees. And if you’re a New Yorker and are far enough South to be reading this, you’ve got to be one of the smart ones.
Readers may write Gene Owens at 104 Belspring Lane, Anderson SC 29621, or e-mail him at [email protected]
