Ben vs. Wild

It wasn't a bad Marine Corps Ball.

I drank more than I have in three years... not good in itself, but I fell asleep in my bed, didn't tick off Arinn, and I woke up this morning without "side effects". I must have had like...3 beers! For any further questions regarding THAT portion of the ball look at Arinn's blog. I am just trying to set the stage for the events that were soon to develop.

Arinn and I got home, thanked our babysitter, and sat down to watch "The Office" (first things first) It just so happens that the ball fell on "trash-and-cat-poop" day so I made my normal statement about how the cat's aren't worth it and stumbled out onto our screened in porch.

Picture if you will a Marine Corps aviator, seasoned veteran, leader of Marines dressed to the nines in his dress blue uniform holding our equally seasoned cat crap scooper in his right hand. He opens up the cat box looking to perform his duty quickly in order to facilitate an easy transition to hangover recovery. Staring directly back at this warrior is a possum.

I've never been angrier...it's not the stolen catfood or the lost sleep. It's anger at the inevitable. I truthfully feel sorry for the miserable creature. Hard on the eyes and awkward...just like me. It probably never hurt anyone in its miserable life...and now I've got to kill it before I go to bed. On a smaller scale I was also mad at the fact that I've become so "urbanized" that I was unprepared for such an emergency. So I went out to the carport and searched around the kickballs and beach chairs and found a 3' piece of 2x4. That'll do. I return to the cat box to find the possum hasn't moved. Bing, bang, boom, and the deed is done. Now the crushed, mangy, feral, crapping carcass is bleeding into my catbox and I've got to take care of that before I go to bed as well. I return to the carport and bring back a trowel and 3 walmart shopping bags. That took care of everything left in "solid" form. I scooped the cat feces, and tossed all refuse into my trash can and schlepped it down to the curb.

...just like all Marines, sometimes a killing falls in your path and there's just no way around it. Happy birthday to the Corps...I did take pictures of the carcass, but I've been forbidden to put it on Arinn's page. ...if you must I'll gladly send them to you, but it's a dead possum...not too much of a stretch for the imagination.