On Saturday I made a cryptic comment about Walt Kelly’s comic strip Pogo because I was not sure if we had come to the conclusion of certain wildlife hijinks happening in our driveway and garage or not. I believe the situation has now normalized and we won’t get any more major developments, so I think it’s time to share what happened.
Benny has been working late in the garage on various art projects the past few weeks. He leaves the garage door open, and lately he was getting visitors ’round about 3 a.m or so. Sometimes it was a rat, sometimes a raccoon, but lately it was a very nervous opossum who didn’t seem to notice Benny until very late in the game. Lots of jumping and being startled on the part of this little guy.
One night last week, however, there was a different guest. A skunk. Thankfully the skunk wasn’t as nervous as the opossum, and thankfully Benny wasn’t either. Otherwise there could have been a little bit of trouble. Benny kept to himself, the skunk kept to herself, and all was well.
The next night, the skunk came much earlier and noticed a bowl of old pretzels and bread crusts that Benny had left out for whomever. Benny came inside to videotape the skunk’s investigations from a better vantage point, and that’s when this happened (sorry for the shaky camerawork, but he was laughing pretty hard… the shakiness winds up creating an excellent reveal around 0:29):
Oh my. Against all odds, the opossum and the skunk wound up sharing the bread crusts and it was very charming. This, of course, inspired Benny to set out two slightly more elaborate plates the next night, with an elegant atmosphere to go along with it:
Key lime pie, mini cupcakes, bologna, apple cores, and grapes. The telephone, as I believe he described it, was an attempt to get these two characters to communicate better. We waited. A long time. Nothing. I went to bed and asked him to alert me if anything happened. He eventually went to bed as well.
I woke up in the morning and went out to the driveway.
No dice. At first I was excited because I thought someone had eaten some of the apple, but I remembered that apple cores had been served, not apples. What a disappointment. I had been looking forward to watching this romance bloom. This was like the Fern Dell Ghost all those many years ago, who got spooked and was never seen again once I left some pants for him that weren’t ripped in the butt.
The next night, nobody showed up either. The night after that, the skunk showed up, snuffled around the garage for a bit, and then about two minutes later, the heretofore unseen opossum came out of the garage. So clearly these two are still hanging out, but I guess they want to keep things casual. Oh, also a raccoon showed up at some point that same night. I’m good with all of this, but I’m not sure what we’re going to do if a hat-wearing alligator chomping on a seegar shows up. Set another plate, maybe?
Fancy Notions 
What a romantic dinner set up! ☎️