The Great Opossum Excavation
WARNING: THOSE WITH WEAK STOMACHS MAY NOT WANT TO READ THE FOLLOWING BLOG.
I hate roaches. I’m sure there isn’t a girl who would say she likes roaches. I even know a BOY who hates roaches SO much that he screams like a girl when one comes by (those of you who know Brent, he’s the girly screaming roach hating boy). I once had a twinge of sympathy for the roach when I read Kafka’s Metamorphasis. The image of a really dusty dung beetle (close enough to the roach) with an oozing wound from a piece of apple being impaled in his back was enough to make me almost like the little guys…but, not quite! My brother, in his typical mean big brother-ness, put a dead palmetto bug on my pillow once. Needless to say, come bed time, there were frantic screams coming from my bedroom coupled with hysterical laughter coming from his. Looking back, it was kind of funny…if I was an older brother, I probably would have done the same thing. There was a roach crawling rather slowly and methodically in my classroom this morning. I hate roaches.
Maybe you’re seen the commercial for some kind of pest control service (perhaps Orkin?) that shows “testimonials” of the Orkin men. One guy was saying stuff like, “When people find out I’m an Orkin man, they always have something to say about their pests.” (That was a very poor, loose paraphrase.) But, it’s kind of true. I remember hanging out in the Wesley TV room senior year of college with Sharon, Mike, and occasionally Sam (the Marxist). We enjoyed watching Days of Our Lives and Passions…mostly, we enjoyed making fun of these shows…good times we had. Anyway, the pest control guy would always come during the soap opera hours and Sharon and I loved to talk to him. We mostly talked about rats, because there were lots of rats on the UM campus (fortunately, I never saw a rat…but the pest control guy – who we’ll call Jorge -- assured me that there were lots of rats and to be very careful during “rat season”). Naturally, once the big opossum excavation of 2000 happened, I had lots to tell Jorge.
What? You, who are reading this, may not know about the Big Opossum Excavation of 2000?! Allow me to fill you in…
It all began around November, right before Thanksgiving break. The boys’ apartment at the BSU had a faint odor that kept most of the girls away! The odor seemed to be concentrated in poor Patrick’s room. Patrick and Jon G. were driving back to Tampa for Thanksgiving break and Jon G. reported back to me that the WHOLE way home (which is about a 5 hr. drive), Patrick talked about the smell. He even prayed, “Lord, please deliver the smell from my room by the time I get back from break.” Funny. The smell wasn’t gone after Thanksgiving. It was worse. It was so bad, in fact, that we just KNEW that something had crawled up in the ceiling and DIED (which is exactly what had happened).
One night, when Athletes in Action was having their candlelight Christmas service downstairs (as the boys’ apartment was upstairs and over the big BSU meeting area), a bunch of us decided to get crazy! Maybe the smell of rotting animal flesh had gotten to us, I don’t know. I do know that John, Rob, Patrick, and myself wanted to get to the bottom of the smell. John took out a ceiling tile in the living room and tried to find something. But, as you might imagine, the ceiling crawl space tends to be dark. With flashlights though, John spotted it. Yes, it was a dead animal…a opossum to be exact! Now for the task of getting it out.
Me, in my infinite wisdom (which comes from being a girl and not wanting to deal with dead animals), exclaimed, “I KNOW! Don’t do anything! I’ll go call UNICO!” (UNICO was the on campus service that handled EVERYTHING…certainly they could handle a dead opossum stuck up in the ceiling). John and Patrick were both relieved that I came up with the brilliant idea. Rob, however, responded with, “Don’t call UNICO, we can handle it.” The other boys, not wanting to be chickens, didn’t speak up…I called UNICO any way! [a side note: Rob got snippy with me once he found out I called UNICO and I had to call them back and tell them not to come!]
The opossum was over Patrick’s room and there was NO WAY to get it out from the living room. Drastic times call for drastic measures…so out came the drill and really big hammer. Being the girl, I didn’t want to operate any tools and get remotely close to coming into contact with DEAD FLESH, so I opted to handle vacuum duty. I vacuumed up all the plaster that fell down from the boys’ handiwork.
The hole was made and we could SEE THE DEAD OPOSSUM. Now the screaming began. Ok, yes, I screamed. It was a dead opossum! I believe that Patrick also screamed (not as girly as Brent screams when he comes into close proximity with roaches). Then the phone rang. I answered it since I was not about to be part of getting the opossum OUT of the ceiling. Girard (the BSU director) was calling to tell us to be quiet… “Silent Night” being sung by candlelight was being rudely interrupted by our screams!
Patrick was way too grossed out, as was I, to participate at all in the actual excavation. We stood in the doorway and I hid behind Patrick. Rob, whose fiancé was in Arkansas, ran to get his digital camera to document the excavation. So, that left only John to do the dirty work. With a garbage bag on each hand he reached up into the ceiling, scooped it up, and slung it into the garbage bag attached to the ceiling. YAY! Mission accomplished…almost.
The four of us, adrenaline racing, rushed downstairs, walked quickly past the candles and into the parking lot where we dumped the opossum out. Why did the opossum have to be dumped out of the bag, you might wonder? The boys wanted to make sure ALL of the opossum was there. So, there lay the opossum with maggots and everything! Another scream escaped me (dead animals bring out the TRUE girl in me, what can I say?). The opossum eventually went back into the garbage bag and into the dumpster.
Back inside, we had to deal with the mess and the gaping hole in Patrick’s room. I was really quite concerned for him because if I had to sleep in a room with a big hole where a dead animal was pulled out of, I’d probably cry…or at least have creepy nightmares. Out came the packing tape! We taped up the hole and it kind of looked like a big ice cream cone. [This was almost 4 years ago, and the tape is still intact. I even took a picture of it when I went back in April to visit!] The excitement was over, Rob apologized to me for being snippy about the whole UNICO thing, and the smell was soon gone.
Well, I was glad to tell Jorge all about the big opossum incident. He had quite a few colorful stories to tell me about animals getting trapped up in attics and dying there. Gross! Oh, I feel like I should mention this one last story. Freshman year there was a HUGE stink in the music library. It was very bad. And it turned out that a rat had died in the air conditioning vent or duct or whatever. I guess there were plenty of rats at UM afterall.
I hate roaches. I’m sure there isn’t a girl who would say she likes roaches. I even know a BOY who hates roaches SO much that he screams like a girl when one comes by (those of you who know Brent, he’s the girly screaming roach hating boy). I once had a twinge of sympathy for the roach when I read Kafka’s Metamorphasis. The image of a really dusty dung beetle (close enough to the roach) with an oozing wound from a piece of apple being impaled in his back was enough to make me almost like the little guys…but, not quite! My brother, in his typical mean big brother-ness, put a dead palmetto bug on my pillow once. Needless to say, come bed time, there were frantic screams coming from my bedroom coupled with hysterical laughter coming from his. Looking back, it was kind of funny…if I was an older brother, I probably would have done the same thing. There was a roach crawling rather slowly and methodically in my classroom this morning. I hate roaches.
Maybe you’re seen the commercial for some kind of pest control service (perhaps Orkin?) that shows “testimonials” of the Orkin men. One guy was saying stuff like, “When people find out I’m an Orkin man, they always have something to say about their pests.” (That was a very poor, loose paraphrase.) But, it’s kind of true. I remember hanging out in the Wesley TV room senior year of college with Sharon, Mike, and occasionally Sam (the Marxist). We enjoyed watching Days of Our Lives and Passions…mostly, we enjoyed making fun of these shows…good times we had. Anyway, the pest control guy would always come during the soap opera hours and Sharon and I loved to talk to him. We mostly talked about rats, because there were lots of rats on the UM campus (fortunately, I never saw a rat…but the pest control guy – who we’ll call Jorge -- assured me that there were lots of rats and to be very careful during “rat season”). Naturally, once the big opossum excavation of 2000 happened, I had lots to tell Jorge.
What? You, who are reading this, may not know about the Big Opossum Excavation of 2000?! Allow me to fill you in…
It all began around November, right before Thanksgiving break. The boys’ apartment at the BSU had a faint odor that kept most of the girls away! The odor seemed to be concentrated in poor Patrick’s room. Patrick and Jon G. were driving back to Tampa for Thanksgiving break and Jon G. reported back to me that the WHOLE way home (which is about a 5 hr. drive), Patrick talked about the smell. He even prayed, “Lord, please deliver the smell from my room by the time I get back from break.” Funny. The smell wasn’t gone after Thanksgiving. It was worse. It was so bad, in fact, that we just KNEW that something had crawled up in the ceiling and DIED (which is exactly what had happened).
One night, when Athletes in Action was having their candlelight Christmas service downstairs (as the boys’ apartment was upstairs and over the big BSU meeting area), a bunch of us decided to get crazy! Maybe the smell of rotting animal flesh had gotten to us, I don’t know. I do know that John, Rob, Patrick, and myself wanted to get to the bottom of the smell. John took out a ceiling tile in the living room and tried to find something. But, as you might imagine, the ceiling crawl space tends to be dark. With flashlights though, John spotted it. Yes, it was a dead animal…a opossum to be exact! Now for the task of getting it out.
Me, in my infinite wisdom (which comes from being a girl and not wanting to deal with dead animals), exclaimed, “I KNOW! Don’t do anything! I’ll go call UNICO!” (UNICO was the on campus service that handled EVERYTHING…certainly they could handle a dead opossum stuck up in the ceiling). John and Patrick were both relieved that I came up with the brilliant idea. Rob, however, responded with, “Don’t call UNICO, we can handle it.” The other boys, not wanting to be chickens, didn’t speak up…I called UNICO any way! [a side note: Rob got snippy with me once he found out I called UNICO and I had to call them back and tell them not to come!]
The opossum was over Patrick’s room and there was NO WAY to get it out from the living room. Drastic times call for drastic measures…so out came the drill and really big hammer. Being the girl, I didn’t want to operate any tools and get remotely close to coming into contact with DEAD FLESH, so I opted to handle vacuum duty. I vacuumed up all the plaster that fell down from the boys’ handiwork.
The hole was made and we could SEE THE DEAD OPOSSUM. Now the screaming began. Ok, yes, I screamed. It was a dead opossum! I believe that Patrick also screamed (not as girly as Brent screams when he comes into close proximity with roaches). Then the phone rang. I answered it since I was not about to be part of getting the opossum OUT of the ceiling. Girard (the BSU director) was calling to tell us to be quiet… “Silent Night” being sung by candlelight was being rudely interrupted by our screams!
Patrick was way too grossed out, as was I, to participate at all in the actual excavation. We stood in the doorway and I hid behind Patrick. Rob, whose fiancé was in Arkansas, ran to get his digital camera to document the excavation. So, that left only John to do the dirty work. With a garbage bag on each hand he reached up into the ceiling, scooped it up, and slung it into the garbage bag attached to the ceiling. YAY! Mission accomplished…almost.
The four of us, adrenaline racing, rushed downstairs, walked quickly past the candles and into the parking lot where we dumped the opossum out. Why did the opossum have to be dumped out of the bag, you might wonder? The boys wanted to make sure ALL of the opossum was there. So, there lay the opossum with maggots and everything! Another scream escaped me (dead animals bring out the TRUE girl in me, what can I say?). The opossum eventually went back into the garbage bag and into the dumpster.
Back inside, we had to deal with the mess and the gaping hole in Patrick’s room. I was really quite concerned for him because if I had to sleep in a room with a big hole where a dead animal was pulled out of, I’d probably cry…or at least have creepy nightmares. Out came the packing tape! We taped up the hole and it kind of looked like a big ice cream cone. [This was almost 4 years ago, and the tape is still intact. I even took a picture of it when I went back in April to visit!] The excitement was over, Rob apologized to me for being snippy about the whole UNICO thing, and the smell was soon gone.
Well, I was glad to tell Jorge all about the big opossum incident. He had quite a few colorful stories to tell me about animals getting trapped up in attics and dying there. Gross! Oh, I feel like I should mention this one last story. Freshman year there was a HUGE stink in the music library. It was very bad. And it turned out that a rat had died in the air conditioning vent or duct or whatever. I guess there were plenty of rats at UM afterall.
posted by alisa beth at 9:52 AM
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