Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Opossum

One of my Korean classmates had a creature he had never seen before on his back porch.

Our Tanzanian student, who lives near the Korean student, saw the same creature. She thought he had a new pet. The creature stood there frozen, staring at her.

Both were mystified. The Korean student took a picture of the creature.

"Well, what does it look like?" we (another American student and I) asked them in the grad lounge today.

A thought occurred to me.

"Was it an opossum?" I asked.

They were both confused.

"Does it look like a big rat? With a tail that doesn't have any fur?" we asked.

"Yes!" They replied. "But it was big."

I spread out my hands on the table.

"Yes, about that big."

"A Possum!" We exclaimed.

They don't have possums/opossums in Korea.

You learn something new every day.

3 comments:

Sadako said...

Opossums are creepy. They have too many teeth. :(

Kim said...

Possums are scary! Who would want that as a pet?!?!

Stacie said...

No one would want a possum as a pet! :) It was so funny trying to figure out what animal they could possibly have seen.

(When I was a kid a friend and I found a dead possum and we buried it.)