coconut the opossum

My family has a pet opossum. Sort of. For the past month or so a opossum (by the way, I hate the way that word is spelled) has been coming to my house every night to feast on the cat food in the front yard.

When I was house sitting for ten days straight, Tater Tot would start barking like crazy every night at around midnight. Tater is always barking so I never really thought much of it. Notice the scratch marks all over the door frame? Yeah, Tater was just a LITTLE upset by Coconut. Finally, I decided to actually check out what was causing the Tot so much anguish instead of just yelling at him to stop (and occasionally throwing a stuffed animal chew toy in his general direction). This is how Coconut and I met:
Oh, be warned, the volume is kind of loud because I was VERY excited and could hardly contain myself as I was videotaping. And I have a lisp from my retainers (yes, I wear retainers).


I was talking on the phone to Noelle at the time, and we decided that "Coconut" was a fitting name. I'm not sure why we chose "Coconut", but given that we love to name pets after items of food (Muffin, Latte, Fajita, Tater Tot, Cheese Puff), it just seemed to work.

Since our first encounter, I discovered that Coconut has a temporary hide-out in the front yard. I say temporary because I researched opossums and found out that they are nomadic creatures, but I'm hoping Coconut stays for a while. On the side of our house we have a large banquet table leaning up against a wall along with several cushions from our lawn furniture. Coconut is using the make-shift tent as a home for the time being, here are some pictures of me sneaking up on him paparazzi style:





Coconut, don't ever leave me. 'Cause I'd find you! (name that movie quote)