They call it a possum because it looks just like George Jones

I seem to have enough spare time on my hands that I can always look things up online to ease my curious mind.  Today's mindbuster? Why do we spell it "opossum" and call it a "possum"?  Well, it all started in the 1600s when an Englishman signed the register at Jamestown as "John Smith." One of the people who came here to join the people who already lived here saw a  little critter skittering about, and when he asked, he was told that the Virginia Algonquians, who were there first, called it an "Aposoum," their word for "white beast." 

Meanwhile, explorers who went to Australia saw a creature that they thought looked like an"opossum," as the word evolved, but that animal is something altogether different, another marsupial called the possum.  

The possum lives in New Guinea, Australia, Indonesia and other islands in the Pacific region. It has a furry tail, whereas our naked-tailed animal is the"opossum," although we call it a "possum" because we like to mess words up. 

But both animals are grey, and have the ability to fake death, or "play possum," when faced with danger. And being marsupials, they carry their young around in a pouch, even though Geoffrey, that giraffe who works at Toys "R" Us, tried to get them to use Fisher-Price strollers.  They demurred on the grounds that if the pouch is good enough for kangaroos, it's good enough for them.

And being the only known North American marsupial, it's their right to choose.

I can tell you about one opossum who wished he had made a better choice, and that's the one who had to sleep it off at a wildlife center in Florida after tying one on at a liquor store and guzzling a miniature of Vodka. 


"This sly, and currently slurred, opossum snuck its way into a liquor store and discovered some holiday cheer of its own," according to the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge, who dealt with the critter after a local police officer brought it in the other day. Officer Michelle Pettis had responded to a call for breaking-and-entering at the boozatorium and captured the suspect in a box with his stolen hooch. 

Just as with two-legged burglars who overimbibe, the cure was to flush toxins by pushing fluids to lessen the chance of potential alcohol poisoning.

The liquor store owner declined to press charges, and the animal was released on his own recognizance, back into the wild.