Proper Opossum Pampering

July 29, 2010 11:50 AM

Proper opossum pedicure. Proper opossum dental hygiene. Proper opossum massage. Videos by ME Pearl!
posted by hermitosis (25 comments total)

Good advice, but no replacement for the illicit thrill of improper opossum pampering
posted by theodolite at 11:54 AM on July 29, 2010

Due to overwhelming popular demand, by readers who don’t have a clue what is going on here, I am including a brief temporal autobiography of ME, Pearl de Sagesse de Sabaduria.

I AM A DEAD SQUIRREL WHO KNOWS EVERYTHING and pines to share it with YOU. I lived for 10 years as a non-releasable in So. Cal, and gnawed my way through most of a Merriam-Webster’s English dictionary and around the edges of a LaRousse Spanish/French. Plus, I absorbed vast amounts of information through my 7 senses, tuned beyond anything you can yet imagine. And the rest I make up.
In short, in matters vegetable, animal and mineral, I am the very model of a modern psychic squirrel.
Croaking only increased my power and lovability factor.
You can ASK PEARL anything. Confide in ME, Gentle Reader; unburden your soul. Pearl wants to hear from you, NOW.

This. is. brilliant.
posted by Think_Long at 11:56 AM on July 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Opossums make great pets. Some friends of ours used to have one named Mr. Kisses. They're mystical folks, a bit on the hippie side (from the original '60s movement). The lady of the house was known to describe Mr. Kisses as being dumb as a stump but radiating pure telepathic love. She'd walk him on a leash, late at night, this waiflike hippie mom in a long diaphanous dress, flowing hair down nearly to her waist, giant ratlike Mr. Kisses waddling in front of her, his face white in the gibbous moonlight. (Sorry for the gratuitous gibbousness.)
posted by infinitywaltz at 11:58 AM on July 29, 2010 [11 favorites]

Seeing the word "opossum" repeated that frequently in a single line makes the word just look wrong to me.
posted by hippybear at 11:59 AM on July 29, 2010

Kylie was so awesome in the Fantastic Mr. Fox.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 12:06 PM on July 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Due to overwhelming popular demand, by readers who don’t have a clue what is going on here, I am including a brief temporal autobiography of ME, Pearl de Sagesse de Sabaduria.

Delightfully dopey and reminiscent of Archy & Mehitabel.
posted by carsonb at 12:14 PM on July 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Eee! I love opossums! My parent's house had a giant tree in the back yard which was home to multiple generations of an opossum dynasty.

Sadly, my dad told me the other day that it appears the eldest of the current tribe was killed by a car, and she has left behind a weened but still very young baby boy. They are apparently trying to do everything they can to make sure the newest generation of our tribe lives through the winter.
posted by strixus at 12:14 PM on July 29, 2010

Yay! There are people out there stranger than me!

Ok, I already knew this, but it is nice to actually have this validated at some point.

I wanted to do a site where people could send me problems and I would give them solutions. On anything. But this has more or less done to death. It hasn't been done to death by a squirrel.
posted by cjorgensen at 12:17 PM on July 29, 2010

This post is missing the "ossum" tag.
posted by vapidave at 12:18 PM on July 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

So glad my original reading of this post's first words as "Perfect Opossum Recipe" was wrong. They seem too cute to eat. Though I gather a lot of Americans in the past have disagreed with me about that.
posted by bearwife at 12:19 PM on July 29, 2010

HERE'S ONE THAT IS SO MAD

I was seriously hoping that possum would leap through the air and eat the camera guy's face. "You wanna get me?". No, dude, he's perfectly fine with you driving up to him on a giant roaring smoke-belching demon monster and then poking at him with a video camera.
posted by Justinian at 12:22 PM on July 29, 2010

HERE'S ONE THAT IS SO MAD

HERE'S ONE THAT IS HIS POLAR OPPOSITE
posted by Mr. Bad Example at 12:22 PM on July 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

Agreed, Think Long.

Favorited for brilliance, but flagged for lack of berets.
posted by sebastienbailard at 12:43 PM on July 29, 2010

Burhanistan, if it's a pet that she's raised, it'd be pretty docile at night, too.
posted by infinitywaltz at 12:48 PM on July 29, 2010

The end credits list the woman as Georgette Spelvin. Googling that name did not give me the answers I was expecting. And who is Rachael Rosenthal, and why is this her picture?

The deeper I dive, the darker it gets.
posted by MiltonRandKalman at 2:06 PM on July 29, 2010

all you possum lovin' peoples, have i got a deal for YOU! a real live, real life, opossum safari in the heart of wild, wonderful, exotic new orleans! you'll stay at chez msconduct where all day the resident kitties (currently 4 indoor, 4 outdoor) will either paw you half to death trying to get your attention or run & hide under the bed until you leave. then from dusk until dawn the opossum safari begins! THRILL! to the little bastards who hide under the house, going 'eep! eep! epp!' CHILL! to the s.o.b.s who dart through the backyard as they forage. MARVEL! at how the mottled little marsupials belly up to the cat food bar & barely take notice of you as you clap your hands, stomp your feet, and shout SHOO! SHOO! know ye: they fear not! at least not until you get the broom or the squirt bottle and chase them away. for the time being. then as soon as you close that door behind you, the wee beasties are once again swarming on the postage-stamp-sized porch. not to worry. here at chez msconduct, we don't believe in offing the little omnivores, but we'd love to have you wrangle up a few & tote 'em on home & call them your very own.

really. *please!*
posted by msconduct at 2:40 PM on July 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

I honestly can't figure out if this is parody. I hope not. I really want it to be earnest and real.
posted by waldo at 3:05 PM on July 29, 2010

God, this is exactly what I needed to see today. I can't even. I love this woman's delivery the most of anything. The next time I give a talk, I am going to channel her.
posted by Tesseractive at 3:14 PM on July 29, 2010

I love possums so much. It breaks my heart every time I see a dead one in the road...which is often.
posted by MaryDellamorte at 3:31 PM on July 29, 2010 [1 favorite]

I was surprised to find out possums build big-ass nests. I was awoken by one in our backyard which was ripping out dry, dead lilies one by one, then carrying the leaves around wrapped underneath its tail. After there were no more lilies left, it hopped onto a step tool with its bindle wrapped in its tail, and jumped over the fence.

I do enjoy this picture of a possum nest under the hood of a car.
posted by benzenedream at 6:18 PM on July 29, 2010 [3 favorites]

Possums are actually easy to handle! Their big defense is pretty much that scary hissing face, but they don't do all that much to back it up. At the wildlife clinic where I spent many years, we were trained to pick them up by moving one hand around in a distracting motion near their face. While the possum hisses at that hand you just reach around and use the other hand to pick it up. They are not the brightest of creatures. The unreleasable ones become friendly to their humans pretty quickly. As we could only house a certain number of educational animals at a time, unreleasable possums often "disappeared" instead of being euthanized. They will happily use litterboxes and get along well with cats. The one in my profile picture was named Madge.
posted by troublewithwolves at 8:52 PM on July 29, 2010 [5 favorites]

I know what you're thinking. What if my opossum is a nail biter?

I have completely forgotten what I did today.
posted by mdonley at 5:41 AM on July 30, 2010

whois mepearl.com?

Administrative Contact:
Dresdon, Anna

http://www.annadresdon.com/
posted by overeducated_alligator at 7:17 AM on July 30, 2010

I honestly can't figure out if this is parody. I hope not. I really want it to be earnest and real.

Does it really matter? Either way she's massaging a real live possum. Even if you're doing it just for lulz, the end result is still a massaged possum. And that's a truly weird & wonderful thing. This is one of the best things I have ever seen. I wish I could favorite it a hundred times.
posted by scalefree at 2:06 PM on July 31, 2010

Some of it's clearly tongue-in-cheek. "A life well-lived is going to show on the feet as well as the hoary face. That's H-O-A-R-Y. I would never make a moral judgment on an opossum - and neither should you." Even so, she's still really doing these things to a real possum, and that makes it worth any punching-up she thought was needed.
posted by scalefree at 2:53 PM on July 31, 2010