Two in a row!

Here's an interesting (?) story for you: Two weeks ago, Schmoobs was out of town for work (still a common occurrence, especially this time of year...some things will never change) and I walked out to our back patio. Note: our patio is covered (click here for reminders of what our house looks like) but the external door is usually unlocked. I looked down to the right of the steps where Schmooblies normally keeps a pair of old sneakers that he has reserved only for lawn-mowing purposes. Being who I am, I have made it a point to make sure that those shoes are kept neatly flush against the wall near our straight row of patio chairs. However, this time, I noticed that the sneakers were askew, one was toppled over on its side, and the insert was pulled clear out of the shoe itself.

"Weird." I thought to myself for a second. But then I just brushed it aside and figured that Schmoobs had used them shortly before he left and I just hadn't fixed their positioning after he took them off. 

But then the next day, I was leaving the house through the back again, and this time I noticed that one of the patio chairs had been pulled away and slightly askew. This is the sort of thing I notice because those chairs are, again, normally kept in a neat row. This is when I realized that something was moving things around on our patio, probably in the middle of the night.

A couple of days later, Schmoobs was back home and I remembered to relay my observations to him. He was all: "IS SOMEBODY GOING INTO OUR PATIO AT NIGHT?!" and I was all, "I DON'T KNOW!" and he was like, "IS IT KNUCKLES?!" and I was all, "I THOUGH MAYBE IT WAS JUST A CRITTER BUT NOW I'M FREAKED OUT!" and he was all, "IT'S KNUCKLES!" and I was like, "ACK! IT'S PROBABLY JUST A RACCOON OR POSSUM." And then there was much discussion about installing a lock on our patio door. But then we forgot about it and didn't do anything because that's how we are. Sigh.

ANYWAY. And then a few days ago I was driving home from school and saw this right in front of our house:

"Alas, poor Yorrick. I knew him well."

And then I got kind of sad, because even gnarly dead possums make me sad. But then I, of course, snapped this picture and sent it to Schmoobs:

And we thought that was the end of our little critter caper.

But then last night at around midnight, I let BB out to go squeeze out some tinkles before I went to bed and guess what I saw under a lamp light in our back lawn? A POSSUM! It scurried back into the shadows as soon as BB made her way out, but it seems that we have multiple patio bandits. Gah. As long as the most they do is move shoes and patio furniture around. 

Better than Knuckles!