One Saturday evening, rather early Sunday morning…  after partying as a young man would. I wandered up our driveway and saw a rat the size of a small dog…

Well how could this be!   Was I seeing things?…
but no – I see it fritter across the dimly lit garage floor.

Slightly inebriated but sobering fast. I used a snow shovel as a
shield to make my way to the door.

Now what to do?  Is this monster in the garage
something to forewarn my dad?  Do I leave the
garage door open to allow it to escape?

Now this was a delima… for what trouble would
I be in if I left the door open, or didn’t and it was there
in the morning as we were leaving for church?

So I woke dad, and he came with me to see the rat
which had this befuddled look as it peaked out
from behind some wood scraps.

Dad said it’s the largest rat he’s ever seen… and
I should go get the BB gun in the basement.

I hold the door open and dad shoots at the monster
rat… which now has out of fear turned its backside
to us.

The BB rolls out of the end of the gun and bounces
down the stairs… and of course does nothing but
make a loud pop, followed by, a bing, bing
as the BB found its way to the garage floor.

Dad says, we need to oil the gun… of course…
so we oil the gun and test fire into the garbage can
from under the kitchen sink… by now we are laughing
at the absurdity of this…

Again laughing, and giggling,  I hold the door open
and dad shoots the monster rat in the ass…
and it turns back around and looks
mournfully at us.

Dad says get the encyclopedia and look up
possum… (yes, this was way before google, and the
encyclopedia was our go to reference.)

There in the book labeled “P” I found a picture of
our monster rat… and read: when scared 
it would play dead...  well I thought this is not right,
It really just looks sad, as it plays mournful.

Dad says enough adventure for one night, go to bed,
I’m sure he’ll be gone in the morning… We were still
laughing, and feeling sheepish… and in the morning
the monster was gone, and we had the pride of
men who protected our homefront…

We laughed  about this for some time… deciding
maybe we should keep it to ourselves…
well for a while anyway