Don't you just love it when your wife wakes you up in the middle of the night and asks, "did you hear that?" It's a common occurrence around our house * probably because I could sleep through a freight train hitting the house, but she wakes up when she hears a cricket outside the window.

When the air conditioner fell out of the bedroom window, it was probably as loud as a freight train. But last night, the sound really wasn’t much louder than a cricket. It was a rustling noise from behind the house. It took me a while to hear it, and I tried to make her believe it was thunder. I just wanted sleep!

A few minutes later, I was slipping on my jeans and heading down the dark hallway * I really wasn’t as brave as I seemed. I kept thinking about someone trying to break in; I just knew I was about to die. But I kept going * trying to be the brave warrior, eager to protect my family.

When I got to the back porch, I heard the noise, and it sounded like it was under the house. In times like this, I always think it’s a person making the noise (probably not logical, but who thinks logically when they should be ASLEEP?!?!?!) I thought someone had removed the glass panel and crawled under the house * even though there was a large trash can, the water hose caddy, and an aquarium in the way.

Afraid, I didn’t want to be on the back porch in case the person would see me and have a gun! I ran back into the house, and into the utility room, where I could get a good look into the corner. I hit the window, hoping whatever it was would show itself * nothing. My frightened wife, apparently thinking something was attacking me, came in to see if I was ok.

I decided to take the screen out of the window. I would still be protected by being in the house, but I could have a closer look, and I could use the rake that was leaning on the house, to find the source of the noise. When we noticed the trashcan moving, I assumed something was under it. With the rake, I hit the trashcan . . . moved it around . . . still nothing. The stupid thing had run away while I was taking the screen out. But that argument wouldn’t satisfy my wife. No * I had to go out there and make sure.

With a broom in hand, I slowly opened the back door, and reached out to turn on the light. When I did, I looked down into the trashcan by the steps, and there it was * an opossum! It was stuck. Now what?

The brains of our operation (you’ve probably figured by now that was NOT me) suggested putting the lid on the trashcan and taking the opossum out in the yard to let it go. As I got closer to the trashcan, its mouth opened wider, revealing some pretty mean-looking teeth. I wasn’t sure if it would bite, but I definitely didn’t want to take the chance.

To finish this story as quickly as possible, once I got the trashcan out into the yard, and I realized that tipping it over and trying to pry the lid off wouldn’t work, I took off the lid, stepped back as far as I could, tipped over the can with the broom, and ran like crazy.

I didn’t look back.