Twentieth century novelist and horror pioneer H.P. Lovecraft used to write about nightmarish creatures known as the Elder Gods, a race of giant evil superbeings that have been asleep deep under the most remote regions of the world since long before the rise of man. Though they sleep, their minds still have some power over some parts of humanity, driving people mad. The scary part is the idea of the creatures waking up and destroying everything.

So bearing that in mind, imagine a similar situation scaled down to fit in a suburban backyard. For the past week or so, Chewie (the good dog) and Toby (the adequate dog) have been begging to go outside every five minutes. Every time they get out there, they run around barking and tear-assing through the bushes by the house. Usually, it's a squirrel or a chipmunk or dead leaves blowing around. Chewie likes the chance to run around and Toby has a short dog complex, so they both enthusiastically chase anything they can.

I let Toby out tonight so that he could go arbitrarily mark his territory in an already fenced yard (someday he's going to feel really foolish when I show him the deed to the house that says we already own it, yard and all) and maybe chase squirrels in a Don Quixote fashion. He was barking, so I went to go tell him to shut up, but when I leaned my head out the door the only words I could produce were "holy shit." Toby had cornered a possum (an opossum?) by the fence. Not just any possum, but a full grown one that had survived outside in the longest stretch of cattle-killing cold winter I can remember in at least five years. There's a line in the movie Apocalypse Now: "Every minute I stay in this room, I get weaker, and every minute Charlie squats in the bush, he gets stronger." Toby lives indoors, eats from a permanently stocked bowl, and sleeps on soft warm beds made for people. He gets his hair cut at Sissie's Pet Salon. The Possum lives in the bush like the VC. Toby is a blob of cookie dough. The Possum is carved out of wood.

The Possum was just sitting there with it's mouth open, giant teeth bared. Toby was a few feet away, trying to decide the stupidest possible course of action. Chewie was trying to see what all the fuss was about, and if it was worth his valuable time. Being the largest mammal present, I decided I had better put a stop to this rodent-foolery. I walked out onto the snow trying to look big to assert myself as being dominant, but it occurred to me that I'm 6'4" and the Possum could probably still take me if given no other alternative. I called Toby and told him to go inside, and in a rare moment of obedience, he actually took a few steps toward the door. The Possum was looking at me now, silently gauging the distance from its feral jaws to my balls or throat. One thing he didn't count on was that I was raised a suburban kid, and if I'm threatened in the winter, I will immediately unleash a torrential hadoken of snow and ice balls that rivals the bombing in Vieques. I even hit the Possum a few times before it closed its jaws. The gate was closed, so it had nowhere to go, and we were at a stalemate. I went back inside and the Possum went back to whatever subterranean dwelling it thinks of as home, but I know it's still out there. It's in the bush getting stronger.

Incidentally, had this been a badger, I would have made haste to the internet to research what badgers eat. "Badger? Pfft, it's probably Milhouse."