Hi Folks!
 
Paw Paw and Mee Maw is eatin' their TV dinners, so we thunked that we would
sneak in here to the pooter room and tell ya'll, real quick-like, about
something that happened here last night.  Some of you might remember when we
gotted a posum for Christmas last year.  In case you don't, and for the new
folks, here's a part of what we done did wrote:
 
>Then the strangest thing happened.  We heard Paw Paw talikin' cooing and
>sweet words in his flu tinged voice.  "Here, Little Guy," we thought we
>heard him say.  "I'm so sorry that Mee Maw scared you so badly."
>
>"That's it!" Mee Maw said. "Now I believe that he's really sick. He's making
>friends with the snake that almost ate me alive."
>
>With that, she grabbed us up and rushed out the back door, with no other
>intention than to save the Old Fart from his fever induced delusion of
>friendly snakes.
>
>That's when the three of us seen something really special.  Lo and behold,
>we found the Old Man, sitting in his favorite, broken patio chair - the one
>right next to his BBQ grill.  He was talkin' baby talk to the critter that
>he held in his arms.
>
>"Mee Maw, Guys," he croaked as we approched.  "It wasn't a snake after all.
>Just this Little Fellow's bald tail that you mistook for a snake.  He was
>cold and found some warmth in our dryer; that's all."
>
>Us and Mee Maw was taken aback as we watched the sick old man pet our
>Christmas Possum.  We'll have to admit that Chris is just about the ugliest
>critter that we've ever seen; but he kinda grows on you.  It must be
>Christmas.
 
Well, folks, we're here to told you that Chris is still with us.  He's still
just as ugly as a California legislator, but he's done growed on us big
time.  We'll let the Old Fert tell the rest of the story since our paws is
sore from tryin' to catch up on some mails today.
 
Yes, it's really me - the Old Fert himself.  The Guys put me up to this so
you can blame them if you don't like the story,.  even though it's true.
Here goes...
 
Ol' Flop Foot and I came clomping into the house about 10PM last night.
We'd delivered three truckloads of mail to various Post Offices and were
feeling pretty proud of ourselves for a job well done.  My first clue that
the night might be special came when I saw that the den light was still on,
and found Tater and Odie bouncing all over the various keyboards in the
computer room.  I guess that the Guys were writing some letters - not so
unusual.  When you live with two ferrets who have IQ's in the genius range,
you get used to such things.
 
What really concerned me was the fact that Mee Maw was still up.  She was
sitting in the den, the remnants of a TV dinner in her lap, grinning like a
cat that just ate a pet canary - and didn't get caught.
 
"What's up?' I asked as I clomped into the room.
 
"Oh, Michael!  Chris is back!"  She replied.  "He's out on the patio, eating
with the cats."
 
Sure enough, further inestigation revealed a possum - sharing an evening
meal with nine cats.  The cats didn't seem to mind, and Chris seemed to feel
right at home with them.  It was a peaceful and holy scene.  My mind drifted
back to the day that Chris had become our Christmas Possum.  I thought many
thoughts; came up with many clever ways to describe what I was feeling.  I
can remember only two of them as I write this: "Peace on Earth" and "Joy to
the World."
 
I can only hope that you too will find a little bit of Christmas this Summer.
It certainly is refreshing.
 
Paw Paw - Tater, Odie and Mee Maw too.
 
 ___________________________________________________________
[Posted in FML issue 2008]