The Possum in the Outhouse Story

In eight days I will have promised you one year ago* that I would gift to you all what I like to call "The Possum in the Outhouse Story". This is a story that will make you laugh out loud when you read it, and it will make you laugh again tomorrow when you tell your friends about it. There are a few things that we will have to talk about to set the scene. I realize that some of you may not be from Michigan and do not understand what it is to be from Da Mitten. We are a strange folk. There is no doubting that. We have our ways here. Let me paint a picture for you.

The Beefsteak Mushroom
(a.k.a. The False Morel)

Morel Mushrooms

In the early spring there is an event that a large number of Michiganders dream about. It is called "Mushroomin'." Yes, with out a "g".** This is something that we do (often in midday or early morning or whenever the hangover wears off or the beer kicks in) very secretly. We all have our areas and tricks to finding the illusive Morel (or the slightly less coveted Jan Brady of the mushroom world, The Beefsteak Mushroom.) The truth is we will go back to a spot that we found one mushroom 30 years ago convinced that we are going to find more, but you never know if you will or won't find mushrooms. We claim to have our tricks and "lucky spots"; however, there is a great deal that has to do with the weather of the season, the amount of mud on your truck tires, and the number of empty cans on the floor board when it comes to finding these tasty morsels.  This is the one time of year that seeing someone trespassing will probably not be a 911-calling offense (though it is still illegal). Although, like usual, you probably don't want to get caught tromping on someone else's property. We know how to defend our land up here.***

My dad and I had decided to go out on our annual sneak into the woods to find ourselves a mess of mushrooms. We had tried our first spot that if nothing else offers up a few Beefsteaks. Nothing. So we tried another spot that was only posted well enough that we could have made a plausable case about having not seen the posted signs. Nothing. Apple orchard. Nothing. Party store for beef sticks and cheese. Nothing. We had been at it for an entire 12 pack and still hadn't found anything. As a last ditch effort we decided that the time had come to stomp some different ground. We headed west to higher ground in our covered wagon, the days were feeling long, and the horses....wait that's a different story.  Anyway, we headed to some property that belongs to my dad's cousin. We knew that no one had been there, and he had me convinced that there had to be gold in them there hills.
After a couple of more beers and at least two extra "let's check here on the way" spots, I started to feel a little full. I was becoming more and more aware of the fact that thinking about waterfalls and oceans was becoming outside my realm of comfortable day-dreaming. I sat in the truck and took a deep breath and lit a cigarette (don't start) and took a drink of my beer (because that obviously makes sense) and started to contemplate the minutes left in the journey before the beef jerky was gone and there would need to be another pit stop. It was going to be a while. Shit.

"Hey, Dad. Can we stop at Uncle's?"
"Na, Him and Aunt Norma are at church."
Damn it. Stupid Sunday.
We pulled onto the property, and I got out to open the gate. Standing was way better then sitting. It wasn't long though, as I fidgeted with the rusted latch over the driveway that I realized standing wasn't better at all. I could feel the pressure building. Click. Oh good. I hopped (if wiggling into the seat with your arms at your sides penguin-style because bending at the waist has suddenly become painful can be called hopping) into the seat. He stopped the truck.
"What?!" I was starting to really feel desperate.
"The gate?"
"I'll...get...it...on...the....way...out...Dad!" How could anyone ask another human to latch a gate when they are clearly in urinary distress?!
We parked the truck a couple hundred yards in and got out. Standing is better. No, its not. Yes, it is. No. Yes. Shut up.
"Yeah, dad. I'll go this way." I started around the edge of the pond, and tried to watch my feet and not the water. I just needed to make it in about 20 yards, and I could drop drawers and let 'er rip. 
Just as I looked up and saw it myself, he said it: "You gotta pee? Use the outhouse? I'll check it for wasps first."
 My hero! Thanks, Daddy! You are wonderful! No one will ever be like you...
"It's good. Hurry up though we got some ground to cover and rains coming. Grab a napkin off the floor board." Classy, Dad.
I hurried myself as quickly as two legs clasped tightly together to seal in impending doom can carry a person (which is to say at the speed of snail). Fuck the napkin. I opened the door. Creak. I closed the door. Smack. I unbuttoned my pants. Ahh. And just as I was about to hang my ass in the hole my instincts told me to look in the "toilet". Why you ask? I'll tell you.
When I was a kid there was a show on that was called Rescue 9-1-1. It was a terrible show for children, and my parents and I watched it every week like clock work. It was on after Murder She

Wrote and The Father Downy Mysteries. This show always had 3-5 gruesome tails of 9-1-1 calls and how the dispatchers handled them and what a great EMT team it was and how grateful the distressed person/people were. There was one episode that seared into my brain and has caused me to look in the toilet every time I sit for the last 20 years. That was the snake in the toilet episode. In which, a small boy needs to use the bathroom in his own home in the middle of the night and finds a boa constrictor in the toilet. It had escaped a pet shop, gotten into the sewer, and went up para-scope in this family's bathroom. So now every time I use the bathroom I have to look. Better safe than sorry.
As I wiggled and whimpered I turned and looked over my shoulder half-heartedly (more out of habit than care and necessity). Thank the Divine for gifting me with a terrifying episode of a long forgotten show that has given me an irrational fear that had suddenly become very rational. Stareing up at me from the dark depths of the shallowly dug poop-hole was none other than a Didelphis virginiana.

That's right, grinning up at me with that crooked toothed mouth and beady eyes was an opossum.
My mind went blank, and there was a brief second in my shocked state that I stopped breathing. I still had my hands on my zipper, but I never took the time to reverse its downward motion. I simply jumped as high as an outhouse ceiling would allow, and never took my eyes off the terrifying critter that lived in the dark depths of the crapper. My heart raced and as I opened the door to flee the tiny building that felt like a shoebox now that I was sharing it with a crazed forest creature (I mean, come on, he lived in an outhouse he couldn't have been wrapped too tightly).
"I don't have anything big enough to fight you with!!" I yelled as I shot out of the outhouse. My pants were around my knees as I scrambled into the tree line. My dad wandered toward me to see what had sent me into a frenzy and came upon me creating waterfront property.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Taking a piss! There is a fucking possum in the outhouse, Dad!" I yelled in a very accusatory tone as though he had planted the possum in the shitter as a cruel joke.
"No, there isn't."
"Why would I make that up?!" I spat as I pulled up my pants and pointed in direction I had fled.
"Where?"
"In the outhouse!" I suddenly felt as though I was in a "Who's On First" style situation.
"I get that. Where in the outhouse? I was just in there." I think that my anger would have subsided more quickly if it wasn't so blatently obvious that he was trying to stifle a laugh.
"It's not funny, ya jerk! In the hole...you didn't look there!" I said pointing and beginning to stomp back to the outhouse to prove my point. Honestly, why would have looked there. Looking back at it, it makes perfect sense that he wouldn't look in the hole. I mean really, whatever is in the hole of an outhouse doesn't need to be viewed by someone that didn't put it there.
We reached the outhouse. Dad looked at me one last time as if he were deciding whether or not I was making it up. He walked in, and before the door could close turned tale and walked out.
"There is a possum in there!" He said with a surprised look on his face.
We did not fight the possum. We did not find mushrooms. We did catch a pretty good buzz, and we have gained a story that has been told countless times around many campfires. It always proves to be a hit. It also just solidifies my once irrational fear of finding something unexpected in the toilet. Not so irrational once you have come upon a possum in an outhouse let me tell you.
So there it is "The Possum In The Outhouse Story." Now you know. Share it. Make it your own.
Enjoy. And always look in the hole before you squat because you never know what you might find in there. It could be a snake or a dragon or a million dollars or a fucking possum. Pee-ers beware. You have been warned.

*Refer to last July's blog Bathroom Etiquette for Strangers, in which we are visited by a debt card wielding, middle-aged, woman that has a sudden fear of incontinence. I still can't figure out what she thought she was going to do with that debt card. "I'm sorry, ma'am. We charge by the flush AND the square here."
**Mushroomin': v. : to look for mushrooms on the forest floor in the early spring. Special attention is paid to in areas that are remote and none of your business.
***I feel as though this would be a good time to note that although people pay OUTRAGEOUS amounts of money for an ounce or pound of these dehydrated nibbles, these mushrooms are not illegal or psychotropic in nature. Do not panic if someone says there children love Morel mushrooms, they eat them together all the time. This perfectly acceptable behavior.