Playing Possum

Today I discovered just how true this phrase rings.

Around noon, Noah was out back carrying on, and when I looked, I saw him tossing something into the air, then barking at, lather, rinse, repeat. Curious, I threw on my shoes and a coat and went out there to find Noah tossing around a medium-sized possum. I got Noah to leave it alone, then inspected the scene. No blood, not a lot of sign of struggle, but the damn thing didn't appear to be breathing, and was stiff when I kicked it. This would be the second possum that Noah has either killed or found dead, as I removed a bloody one from the garden this fall. Anyways, I grab a snow shovel and a trash bag and bag it up and toss it into a standard-issue blue trash can. Problem solved, right?

Wrong.

Around 3:45, I go outside to drop a bag of trash into said blue trash can, only when I open the lid, what do I see? A perfectly alive possum, staring at me! The darn thing was alive the whole time! Playing possum, indeed!

So now the trash can is on its side with the lid open in hopes that he will leave and not return to my yard.