Another excerpt from my book.
In the country, there are a few things that you need to remember if you’re parking your car for any length of time. The most important, however, is that you should always, always, always, close your car door. Always.
One night back in the summer of 2001, I forgot this little bit of crucial advice. I say crucial advice now, but back then, it was something I never really thought about. I mean, it’s a car, and it’s the country. What could possibly happen, right?
As it turns out, a lot can happen.
Near midnight, I walked out to my car and noticed that the passenger door was open just a smidge. Not a lot. I hit the door with my hip and it closed the rest of the way. No big deal. I figured I’d left it slightly ajar when I was getting stuff out of the car earlier in the night. Nothing to even really consider.
I walked around to the driver’s side and got in the car, started the engine, and drove up the driveway toward the highway.
I should explain, before I go any further, what kind of area I was in. The highway I was just about to turn onto was incredibly busy, namely because of some blues festivals that was getting out at that time. The highway dropped off to one side because of an embankment, so there was no shoulder at all to pull off.
The cars were a steady stream, so stopping anywhere was out of the question, or it would cause a massive pile up. On the other side of the road, again, no shoulder to speak of. It was just a sheer rock wall, and a lot of oncoming traffic.
To say the least, it would be a bad place for the car to break down or get a flat tire. It would almost certainly cause a huge accident.
When there was a large enough break in the traffic, I pulled the car out on to the highway, got up to speed, and tried to concentrate on my driving because the traffic was already hectic (and it was only a two lane road, but really, more of a one and a half lane road).
It was only after about ten seconds on the highway when I finally heard it.
I’m not sure how one would describe it, but it was a loud exhale. Like someone was tired or bored and let out that quick snort to let everyone know their dissatisfaction at the situation. I looked in the backseat, half expecting to see someone sitting there, but I was alone.
Well, for a moment, I thought I was alone.
Then, as I passed under a street light, there it was in the amber glow. Two beady eyes staring back at me from the passenger side floorboard. It took a few moments for my brain to process what I’d just seen. Afterall, you don’t normally expect to see an animal in your car.
But there it was. A possum. An honest to god, big as a decent sized dog, possum. And ironically enough, when we made eye contact, it decided it was pissed.
May I remind you that I’m still driving. I’m doing 60mph, I’m trying not to crash, and I have nowhere to pull over. There is no way to stop, and there is a hissing, snarling, dog sized possum sitting no more than three feet away from me. And worse yet, I have the thing cornered. I suppose I could haved tried to explain to it that I didn’t willingly have it cornered; as fate would have it, things just worked out that way.
I didn’t think the little bastard was going to listen to reason anyway.
With one eye on the road and one eye on the possum (which is quite the feat anyway), I slowly reached my right hand back (when I was done shifting in to fifth gear) to feel around for anything, ANYTHING, to defend myself from said intruder. Everytime I made a movement even remotely close to the little bastard, it hissed and pretended to lunge toward me.
In the backseat, I could only find one thing: a quart of oil.
At 60mph, on a dark highway, there I was: left hand on the wheel and trying not to crash, right arm wildly swinging and hitting the possum up against the car door and trying to make sure it didn’t bite me (those teeth did not look pleasant at all).
Every time he would try and move toward me, I would swing the quart of oil back at him and knock him back. It was for a few good seconds where I thought we had a truce, but instead, he lunged for me again. He was relentless, and it was then that I was concerned about getting rabies.
At one point, the little critter bit into the quart of oil and, twisting it’s ragged little mouth, the black liquid came spilling out all over the floor.
The little fucker had bitten through my only weapon.
Mind you, this all took place in the span of thirty seconds, but as far as I was concerned, it could have been a lifetime.
It was about then that I saw a church parking lot coming up. I was only able to slow to 45mph since I had very little warning before the driveway, and I couldn’t turn on my blinker (my right arm was still occupied with beating the crap out of the possum with my leaking quart of oil). I swung in to the parking lot, slammed down from fifth gear in to second and in the process, locked up the backwheels. My car went in to the parking lot sliding sideways.
And the whole time, I managed to keep the possum at bay with my leaky quart of oil.
Once in the parking lot, I slammed the brakes, pushed in the clutch, and unlocked the passenger door with the right hand while my left arm took over the possum pounding duties. I swung open the door and, with the hardest hit I could manage with a now almost empty bottle of oil, knocked the hairy bastard out of the car and in to the parking lot.
I shut the door and, for just a few moments, watched to see what my former passenger was going to do.
I shit you not, I think the little bastard smiled at me, more than likely proud at the way he’d diverted my attention for so long and almost caused countless accidents and mayhem on the highway. I think he was even swaggering in his stride.
With a look of satisfaction that only a possum could manage in a church parking lot, he strolled away casually and didn’t even look back at me.
Tempted as I was to run him over, I decided that it was not my night to be tempting fate any further.
I threw away the quart of oil in a garbage can near the parking lot, and tried to clean up the inside of my car as best as I could. I went home. Shaken, but otherwise, with a good story to tell at work.
But to this day, if I ever leave my car parked outside, I always make sure the door had been closed firmly and that there are no animals somewhere inside.
You can never be too careful.