misha fletcher

Ok so. Who would like to hear a story.

Many of you know about my nemesis, the Viriginia opossum. Do not @ me with the thing about how omg they eat ticks; that's been disproven. (See Hennessy, Hild (2021) doi.org/10.1016/j.tt... )

This is a story about a different kind of possum. A better kind.

It's important to me that you know that while we tried not to touch him too much, I did have to kinda move him while I was adjusting the towel and water, and he was. so soft. Like *so* much softer than I expected.

Not gonna lie, I was like, 'omg something positive I can say about the world, and it has cute pictures. I guess I will once again open the torment nexus.' 💕

😭 I have to admit that I'm a sucker for baby animals and will, absent active threat, try to pick up nearly anything to put it somewhere safe.

When this inevitably results in my demise, know I died as I lived: like a fuckin walnut.

For size reference, that terracotta saucer is 10cm/4" in diameter. His entire body, including his head, just about fits in my small-side-of-average hand.

(Also, his arm looks a little messed up, but it's water + my clumsiness, nothing ominous.)

Anyhow. A perfect baby. 10/10, would possum again.

a small, *very* cute, fuzzy, ringtail possum wrapped up in a towel in a cardboard box

a ringtail possum wrapped in a towel, with the edge of the towel pulled up to act as a sunscreen. his arm looks a little messed up, but it's not, it's just because i was clumsy when i moved the water dish and he got a couple drops on him.

a ringtail possum wrapped in a towel in a cardboard box with a terracotta saucer of water next to him. he looks very small next to it.

And that's how we ended up with custody of an adorable little possum for five hours. Eventually someone showed up and took him to the vet to be (hopefully) patched up. He'd recovered enough he could curl up his tail by the time his chauffeur got here, so his odds seemed good.

Anyhow, LOOK AT HIM.

Ash and I bundle this tiny possum in the very large bath towel (all I could grab on short notice) and pop him in the box, and then bring him home and ring the wildlife people again, who tell us to give him some water and that someone will be by to collect him when they're able.

I should digress, slightly, for those of you who do not have this information: the Virginia opossum is a moderately grotesque beast that is my nemesis. The ringtail possum is one of the cutest creatures in the world, often not much bigger than a large squirrel. They're fuzzy little babies.

Ash all but snatches the towel out of my hands. 'They said to pick him up in the towel and put him in the box and take him home and give him some water.'

Me: 'Ok, do you want to pla—'

Ash has already opened the neighbour's gate and is scooping up this tiny little possum in a towel.

A couple minutes after that, I get a frantic text: 'BOX AND TOWEL PLEASE NOW'

Ok. Find a box (thank you, online shopping) and towel and head down to the corner, where Ash is on the phone, draped over the neighbour's fence, looking at a possum that's wedged its face between a planter and the fence.

I'm like, 'Ok! Here's the number. You're gonna have to call because I have no idea where—'

Ash already has their phone out and is dialling.

A few minutes later, they hang up. 'I have to go find it,' they said, and I'm like ok best of luck, I feel like this will end badly but vaya con dios, etc.

So I google 'found hurt possum what do' and discover that I'd forgotten that yes, intense about what you can do with wildlife, but also incredibly defensive of native animals sometimes, because the answer is 'call the local wildlife rescue org and they will hold your hand through it.'

I am also a bleeding heart who stops to scoop injured animals off the side of the road. And Ash is even softer about it than I am.

So I say ok, we can try, but we have to check what's legal, because Australia is sometimes Intense about what you are and aren't allowed to do with wildlife.

Additionally, Ash's report is that the possum had been still on the sidewalk, so much so they thought it was dead until they stopped to look at it, at which point it belly-crawled away, dragging its back half behind it.

I'm not a possum doctor, but it seemed not good!

I worked on a farm that raised meat animals. I eat meat. I lived with a vet who put down possibly-rabid animals. I have friends and relatives who hunt and share the meat. I have lived in an area with chronic wasting disease, causing 'zombie deer'. Etc. I am, shall we say, pragmatic about this.

The shop is literally on the next corner from our house, so when Ash bursts into my bedroom like ten minutes later, panting, I'm like, ???

And they say, 'THERE'S A HURT POSSUM AND WE HAVE TO HELP IT.'

Now: I am not a monster. However.

The other day I sent my child up to the chemist to pick up my meds, which is the 21st century version of sending your kid out to pick up your smokes.

'Baby, run up to the chemist and get mommy's benzos for them. They know me there, just tell 'em you're my kid and they'll give them to you.'

Ok so. Who would like to hear a story.

Many of you know about my nemesis, the Viriginia opossum. Do not @ me with the thing about how omg they eat ticks; that's been disproven. (See Hennessy, Hild (2021) doi.org/10.1016/j.tt... )

This is a story about a different kind of possum. A better kind.

(For clarity: I read the news, and also keyword mute extensively on social media because I do not think that the 24/7 firehose of awful is good for the ol' brainpan.)

💀I think i have enough things muted right now that I've missed those. Comment rescinded; my new answer is 'because people are panicked and want to feel like they're making Meaningful Suggestions and don't bother to think those suggestions through'. Apologies :/

I think of them as being more for short-term crisis/property-destruction scenario than I do a societal collapse scenario. Flooding or fire, hurricane, earthquake, etc. Obviously with some of that you might have time to pack, but it's easier when the essentials are all together already.

You do amazing things now, but I bet you would have a much easier time if it without all the fucking details!

💕I've been so good for *weeks* about being normal on the internet, but—

I would be moderately surprised if anyone here were uncritically enamoured of Thoreau at this point, tho, so it feels possibly a kinder thing to break out of jail for than most.

anyhow, that fucker would do numbers on tumblr

Wait, I do wish to clarify that I did not do this to those young men intentionally. I *was* homeschooling Ash, and we were talking about Thoreau as a mythologised figure and the ways that it was a contrast to the experiences of other people in the area—it was pedagogical, not intentional cruelty.

Me: Ha, I sure have been a ball of cranky and unpleasant lately; I'll stay away from the interactive internet for a while so as not to get the feelings on other people.

Also me: THAT FUCKIN GUY!! AND *ANOTHER* THING—

😅 Happy 2025, start as you mean to go on? 😬

FUCKING RIGHT

I can, technically, do the rather more intellectual version of this screed, and about the way that whiteness and maleness both allowed him to be mythologised and also to erase the work of the people upon whose labour that image relied, but it's two a.m. and I'm full of rage 😂

In conclusion, we used to go meander around Walden Pond occasionally, and I have fond memories of the time I, responsibly educating my child, was talking to them about the realities of Thoreau's life, and also inadvertently *really* ruined the day of several Insight Bros who were there to worship.

do you think that other people in his life had interiority. do you think that they also had feelings and experiences. do you think that maybe they had emotions and also would have liked some time where they weren't DOING HIS GODDAMN WASHING, oh my god i wonder if anyone else might have had thoughts🤔

[spongebob voice] we have to live deliberately

OK WELL MAYBE YOU COULD DELIBERATELY DO THE GODDAMN DISHES, HAVE YOU EVER CONSIDERED THAT

but he was sadddd, he didn't like his job, his brother died WELCOME TO THE WORD! BAD THINGS HAPPEN FOR NO REASON oh my god do you think his mother was ever sad

HI SORRY I WAS—i was gonna say asleep, but actually no, just not paying attention to the internet, for a change.

Anyhow. This is a Thoreau hateblog and will never not be! Fuck you! I would also not fritter my life away with details if I could get someone else to do my washing and bring me supper!