Mom had worked late on some orders, an' when she was finished, she started closin' up...turnin' off lites, lockin' doors.....that sort of stuff. I had been layin' by her an' was ready to call it a nite, too. As mom went to lock the backdoor.....she noticed that Lexie wasn't in the house. This isn't really unusual. Lexie loves to lay outside at nite when it's cool.
So, mom opened the backdoor expectin' to find Lexie on her lil' porch. Nope...not there......mom told me to go find her. I went down the path where she likes to lay by the grape arbor.....nope...not there. I went to check some of her other places.
All of a sudden, mom heard me barkin'. She grabbed her lite an' went out into the fog.
That big lite of hers doesn't really do much good in fog. Visibility isn't really good. The nite sounds seem magnified an' all the bushes an' tree limbs seem closer...bigger...darker. As she made her way down one of the trails towards where she heard me, that's all she could see.....then everything seemed to go silent.
Mom made to the back, where it's more open....not a thing was movin'. She went across the back an' still didn't see Lexie or me. When she made it back to the deck, she found me waitin', but no Lexie. She started over, goin' down another trail to the back. It was a good 15 minutes before she even caught a glimpse of Lexie. A quick glimpse, as Lexie slipped off into the fog as silent as a ghost.
Off mom went on her trail....trails. I stayed on the deck watchin' the blinkin' of mom's lite....an' the two of 'em goin' in an' out all over the yard, even sometimes passin' me. Mom would follow Lexie, then lose her...then find her again....then see Lexie trottin' off w/her ears back an' flappin', her head up high to keep the tail an' bottom half of the big possum that he had in her mouth from draggin' the ground. (I had warned Lexie to leave it back when mom sent me to look for her, don't know why she don't listen to me).
As I watched this, I was thinkin' that mom's feelin's about Lexie's ears was changin' a bit. Mom tried callin' her, tellin' her to stop, tellin' her to "leave it"...to "come here"....an' I know Lexie heard some of this, 'cause she'd look at mom an' then take off w/those ears just a flappin' behind her. Mom was not happy about this an' I think I heard somethin' about a tazer.
This went on for about 45 long minutes...in the fog. At 1 am. Mom lost Lexie. She had tried to cut her off on one of the paths an' then didn't know which way she went. On her last trip around the yard, she ended up back at the deck.
Mom came inside thinkin' she'd close Lexie's door, the backdoor an' turn off the lites...maybe Lexie would at least come closer to the house, an' mom could bribe her.
There I was inside. There on MY bed was Lexie. There on MY bed by Lexie was the possum.
Mom had been outside for about the last 15-20 minutes by herself. She closed the door, closed Lexie's lil' door. Took out the lil' piece of pizza that she had tucked into her pocket to bribe Lexie w/, an' gave a piece to me ('cause I'm the good one)...then when Lexie came over to get a piece, mom gave it to her...then grabbed her collar an' locked her into her bedroom w/sleepin' dad.
Me an' mom both looked at the possum on MY bed. She was sortin' thru all the possible solutions....was it "playin' possum or not?" bein' the first problem. She wasn't gonna do that check they show on tv...no way was she gonna touch it....not even w/gloves. The shovel was way out back....again...what if it was just "playin"...she couldn't leave it loose in the house. Finally, she went out to the deck....got one of her big plastic flower pots, kinda rolled my blankie so the possum fell into the pot. Then she grabbed her lite an' told me to come w/her.
When we got to the back fence, mom tried to dump the possum over it into the field. She forgot, she's short....we've got an' 8 foot fence. There was no way for her to dump it w/out the danger of it fallin' back....on her head. She finally found a lil' rollin' cart that she dragged over to the fence an' that worked. We went back to the house, an' she let Lexie outa' the bedroom.
After puttin' my blankie in the wash, w/soap an' bleach on the "extra dirty/sanitize settin'" mom turned out all the lites an' headed to bed. I followed an' settled down in the doorway for the nite. Both of us ignorin' Lexie sniffin' all over the place lookin' for her possum.
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