This really isn’t a hunting story but it is 100% true. I think some of you have heard it before so tell me if I change anything.
About 15 years ago my wife and I bought a house on an acreage. The house was built in the early 70’s and had brown painted T1-11 siding that had seen its better day, not that T1-11 ever did have a better day. The seller agreed to reside the house and garage in vinyl. We picked out the color and style. It was a slate blue color with 4 inch lap. The seller was a contractor of sorts so he did it himself and he did a good job.
At the time I was really into old Oliver tractors and going to tractor shows. The siding had been finished for about a week when I went to a tractor show in Cedar Falls. I got home just about sunset smelling like a tractor show; coal smoke, sweat and old tractor grease. Jane had barbequed some chicken and left some for me but I had to take shower before I ate. After the shower I just put on a pair of shorts. Much like the old siding they had seen their better days, the elastic in the waist band was shot and about the only thing holding them up was a thought. I sat down at the table and commenced to eatin. I pigged out on what was prolly a whole chicken, a pot of beans, a bucket of ‘tater salad and for desert about a gallon of ice cream with chocolate sauce and sprinkles.
I was stuffed. My shorts fit better though. To help Jane clean up I took the chicken bones outside to the cats. We had a small two step prefab cement stoop leading up to the back door from a cement patio that was between the garage and the house. I just put the plate of bones on the top of the stoop and went back inside. Not that the cats were gonna get much meat off those bones, I had gnawed them pretty clean.
I was miserably stuffed. I think it was prolly the sprinkles on the ice cream that had over done it. I waddled my way to the living room which was only a few feet and a thin wall away from the chicken bones. With the windows open it was like I was sitting right beside them. A few minutes after I was nestled into my comfy chair I could hear very loud crunching coming from the stoop. We had some pretty big cats that could put the hurts on any bone, but not like this.
I struggled out of my chair to see what manner of beast was eating the bones and crunching them so loudly. It sounded like a family of mouth breathers eating corn flakes. The back porch light was on and in the yellow glow of the bug light I saw what the biggest, the fattest, the ugliest grinner ever. This possum was the granddaddiest of all possums everywhere bar none, period. In fact I have shot deer that were smaller than this possum.
Jane is at the window with me and says “Whatever it is shoo it away and for godsake pull up your pants”.” Huh. I ain’t goin up against the world’s biggest possum unarmed and my shorts are just fine”. I have always thought that butt crack has the same effect on women that décolleté has on men.
Well, the lady of the house wants the possum that really could be a chupacabra gone. Huh. So to prove my point a say “Shoo” out the window. No response from the possumcabra. I say “SHOO” from the window. The possumcabra just looks at me with those beady eyes, a mouth full of razor sharp teeth and chicken bones, then grins, then hisses and goes back to snarfing chicken bones off the plate.
I’m not really sure why, but that grin and that hiss just touched a nerve with me. Well, not so much touched a nerve as stomped on an exposed root from a tooth gone bad. It was like he had challenged my rightful place in the hierarchy of the world. He had challenged my manhood. It was the possumcabra, or it was me.
I am a sporting man, so to make it an even fight I left the 12 gauge in the closet and got out the .410. I slammed a 2 ¾” shell in the breech and closed it up. I put three more shells in the back pocket of my worn out shorts and headed for the door. Hey, now is as good a time as any to ask, has anybody ever heard of “Monitor” brand guns? My old single shot .410 has “Monitor” stamped on the side. It is the only gun I have ever seen by that brand.
Anyway, I’m headed to the door, .410 at port arms, hammer back. I can still hear the possumcabra chewing bones, soon he would hear nothing but the sound of the mighty .410 wielded by an angry alpha male. I hit the door latch, it swings a few inches and stops. The damn possumcabra had pushed the plate against the door and somehow I had managed to get the door wedged on the plate. The door wouldn’t open, it was stuck. Now I was really really, uh, unsettled. I pushed the door harder. Nuthin. It was the door or me, it was keeping me from my moment of possumcabra killing, man rights restoring glory. I kicked the door open.
During my struggle to get out the door the possumcabra had waddled his way down the two steps and was waddling across the patio. I was after him like a tiger after a hindu. I jumped down both stairs at once moving the .410 from port arms to high ready and moving my shorts from high ready to low ankle.
Don’t ask me how this next move happened because I don’t know, but one foot cleared the shorts so they were just dragging from the other. There I was, buck naked, .410 at high ready, the possumcabra waddling away and me waddling after it. Damn sprinkles anyway. Again, another move I can’t explain for sure, but I went from high ready position to holding the .410 in my right hand with the muzzle right behind the possumcabra's head. I pulled the trigger just as the freakin thing moved his head to the right. He was now deaf in his left ear, but I could hear the pellets ricocheting off the patio. I was dumbfounded and angrier than ever. I managed to get my shorts untangled from my ankle, fished out another shell and reloaded.
This time the possumcarbra would die. He had waddled just a few feet away. I put the muzzle of the .410 behind his head again and timed my waddle with his. I pulled the trigger just as I stepped on a chard of chicken bone. Now the possumcabra is deaf in both ears but I can still hear the pellets ricocheting into the darkness.
By this time the possumcabra was so disoriented from the ringing in his ears he started going in circles. My shorts with the shells in the pocket were too far away and I was so pissed I tried to club him with the barrel. Another epic fail. The barrel hit the patio, the fore stock flew off the gun and hit the house. About that time it registered in my brain that if the fore stock had hit the house then where did the pellets hit after they ricocheted off the patio?
I looked at the house, then I looked at the garage then I looked at my wife standing in the window with arms akimbo and a scowl. Then I looked down at my nakedness and felt shame. Not because I was naked. That’s never bothered me. I felt shame because my house and my garage with the brand new siding was full of #6 pellet holes.
Yup the house and garage siding looked like Swiss cheese and the possumcabra had wondered in circles into the darkness never to be seen again.
I still have the .410, I still have the same wife, I still have not regained my manhood and I no longer use a gun on grinners. I have a duplicate of a Mark McGwire bat by the back door at the ready. And yes, 15 years later I’m still in the penalty box. Even thought the house is buried in the ground along with any hope of ever being an alpha male again.
The only time in 20+ years of bowhunting that I have been attacked by owls.
