It was a warm and pleasant evening. The wind was light and the sun was just dipping beneath the horizon. Everywhere you looked, you could see the signs that summer had arrived. On this particular evening, my brother Adam and I were headed home for a quick pit stop before a long night out on patrol in the woods. (Somebody has to keep drunken teenagers from burning the place down.) As we rounded the last turn home, we spotted a HUGE possum waddling down the sidewalk.

Scholars would have you believe that these devil-worshiping monsters are actually docile and carefree creatures. But you can’t fool us country boys! These freaks of nature will hiss if you pick them up, bite if you curb stomp em, and I would wager to say, they would steal your girlfriend if you were off to war. Now, usually a possum on the sidewalk is off limits. After all we do live in a free country and if a possum wants to use the sidewalk, who am I to take that freedom away? But in this particular situation, there was history.
About five months earlier this same possum had tried to mug me while I was walking home from a hunter’s education class up the street. The bastard must have known that I would be a great hunter someday. Anyway, I was walking home minding my own business when the biggest possum I’d ever seen jumps off of the fence and onto the sidewalk in front of me. Now normally animals don’t scare me all that much, but when that possum reared back and pulled out a switchblade, well hell yeah, I ran! The famous punt and run strategy worked like a charm and off I went screaming like a girl and planning my revenge.
All that was to say, this little bastard had it coming. As soon as I saw him, I knew this was the chance I’d been waiting for.

“That’s the bastard that jumped me!” I yelled.
Without a word Adam gunned the throttle and with a surge of power his Nissan pickup jumped the curb onto the sidewalk. The adrenaline coursed through my veins as we overtook the deranged marsupial. But as if the fates themselves were stacked against us, the little bastard jumped from the sidewalk just as we reached him. Not realizing we had missed him, since the truck coming off the curb made us think we’d struck him, we continued down the road toward home. As we sped away, Adam checked the rear-view to see the carnage. I watched the smile fade from his face, and a look of blind hatred replace it. Looking back, all he saw was a pissed off possum staggering down the middle of the road giving him the finger! Well of course, we turned around.

“No possum is gonna flip me off and live to tell about it!” Adam yelled as we sped back up the street. The engine raged with newfound ferocity as it greedily drank the generous amount of fuel offered it. This time there would be no escape. The possum didn’t even have a chance. As he dove out of the way of the oncoming pickup, Adam swerved to counter his move. In a culmination of speed, malice and desire, we struck the little prick full on. I cheered as we came about to view the splendor of our kill. What we found was nothing less than infuriating. An even more defiant yet injured possum stood before us. But this time he was giving us the double birdie! With the slam of the gearshift and a stomp of the throttle man once again asserted himself as the undisputed ruler of the street by my house. And safety and order were restored.