Today was one of those mornings. You ever have one of those mornings? This kind of morning:
They don’t come around that often. Today I was up ahead of schedule. Not having to rush out the door in the morning, man, it makes all the difference in the world. I went out back to water the garden. The sun was bright and warm, but the air was still cool from the night before. I breathed in deeply, then set about watering the plants. Herbs, tomatoes, some young citrus trees. It’s shaping up nicely. There’s also some bamboo near the back of the yard that needs watering. It provides great natural privacy, and when the wind rustles through it, it sounds like a tape you’d buy to play while meditating. I sprayed the hose back and forth, letting the bamboo suck up the water like a grateful thirty foot high drinking straw.
Right about then I realized that the slightly unpleasant odor I had smelled from the back left corner of the yard about a week ago A) had not been a temporary thing from the neighbors yard, B) had gotten much worse and C) was coming from a dead, decaying possum about 5 feet from where I stood. Cue the record scratch on the Grieg music. Within the next three minutes, I had encased my hands in plastic bags, managed to work the opossum, which now resembled more of a deflated balloon covered in vaseline and hair, into some more bags, attempted not to breathe in as to not have my lungs leap out of my mouth and run for safety, and observed more writhing maggots per square inch than I ever thought was possible. This was all before I even had a cup of coffee.
So now I sit here at work, and only one thought runs through my mind: Garbage day was YESTERDAY. That thing is the only item in the garbage can. Eventually, I will have to put more garbage into the garbage can. When I do, I’m going to have to encounter the dead possum, but it will somehow be more disgusting and smell worse.
The moral of the story: it’s best to have access to a neighbors garbage can at all times.
8 responses so far ↓
1 Jim Dandy on May 2, 2008 at 9:25 am
Well in my here parts (no not the naughty parts), when you got decaying animals you call the city animal control and they come and take away the thing. Ya ain’t supposed to dump it in the trash.
We had a possum in the parkway that was mostly dead. I called the city and they said they typically don’t do anything until the thing is fully dead, but for me they made an exception. They came out with a noose on a stick, finished the bugger off and then took him away in a Hefty sack.
I suggest you call your village.
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Reply from wakachiwaka on May 2, 2008:
“I feel happy! I feel happy!”
2 Casey on May 2, 2008 at 10:05 am
I live near a town called Wausau (The possum capital of the US) where if you happened upon such a thing you would be expected to give it a proper burial.
http://www.roadsideamerica.com/tip/306
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3 Barry on May 2, 2008 at 10:06 am
Maggots are God’s little garbage cans. What are you doing rooting around in God’s garbage?
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4 R.A. Roth on May 2, 2008 at 10:47 am
The solution to your problem is to have an open yard and a pack of wild dogs or coyotes roaming the neighborhood. I haven’t cleaned up a dead animal since, and the neighbors have reported relatively few missing children, six or seven, tops.
Randy
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5 RemmieBarrow on May 2, 2008 at 1:50 pm
That’s nothing, I have had a dead skunk in the back yard, and those smell ten times worse.
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6 Beautiful Houndstooth on May 2, 2008 at 5:36 pm
Last thing that died in my yard at least had the good taste to do it inside the trash can. Mot sure how that happened… hey! maybe it died in someone else’s yard and they stuck it in my trash! Always have access to a neighbor’s trash indeed!
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7 Neb on May 3, 2008 at 1:31 pm
I don’t know how big your yard is, but I’m a big proponent of the “bury the evidence” approach. Those critter carcasses make good fertilizer. I do feel your pain, the stench must have been spectacular…although perhaps not as horrific of the rotten eggs I found in the veggie garden, where one of my hens had been secretly laying. >8-O
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