At least Erin doesn't need a rabies shot

Rick and I have a 4 mile walk we take together almost every night around the lake at Ada Hayden when the weather is nice. Last night,  however, Rick was busy so I went on the walk by myself.

I left about a quarter to nine and the walk takes about an hour and twenty minutes so it was pretty dark by the time I got around the lake and was heading back towards home. 

There are several houses with friendly cats on our walking route that Rick and I stop to visit with, so when I spotted the fuzzy thing in front of the foot bridge I automatically assumed it was one of my friends.

It wasn't. 

It hissed at me and made this face...

image taken from http://www.dba-oracle.com/ 

Oh.

Not a friendly cat then. 

Guess I'll stop trying to pet it. 

 But now it was backed up in front of the foot bridge. The only bridge within half a mile and I didn't want to walk back around the lake to the other trail so I tried to shoo it away. 

Nope. 

It just did this weird, shuffling opossum dance thing and kept hissing at me. I was afraid to turn my back on it but in my stumbling shuffle to put distance between us I lost a flip flop. 

Oh good. Now I only have one shoe, an irritated opossum and oh look! The little creep has decided to press his advantage. 

I don't know what the standard reaction to one-shoed bullying by a possum is, but mine was to scoop up my flip-flop and whack him in the face with it. 

The opossum's reaction at that point, was to drool and scurry backwards (still hissing) into the tall grass.    

I put my shoe back on and walked home. 

Like a boss.

A flip-flop wielding, opossum thwapping boss. 

That's a lie.

I fell over myself trying to leap across the bridge with only one shoe on and turned around to make sure some crazed marsupial with a vendetta wasn't after me for slapping him in the face with a shoe while I tried to remember how to put on a flip flop during the execution of a spastic heebie-jeebies dance. 

The possum did not reappear but I scurried off like he was after me anyway. 

I told Rick this story when I got home. 

He did not, as I had hoped, leap to his feet in order to avenge my honor  and prevent future bullying against me by the opossum community. 

Instead he laughed at me and gave me that "wow- you're an idiot- who tries to pet a possum" head-shake and said "At least I don't have to take you in for a rabies shot."

Yes. There is that. 

I just had a hair-raising, one-shoed stand off with a ferocious hissing marsupial of drool and you're laughing at me, but at least you don't have to take me in for a rabies shot.