Grace and the Possum and Steve Irwin
Without Prejudice
Gracie is a good friend, I have known her since she was a little girl of 12, she loves a drink or ten and when I was living a few doors from her Brother, Ivan, she soon came to visit.
We hadn't been in touch for years as she was drinking too much when I had known her before, and I avoided her for a while as I wasn't a drinker. If you are a drinker, you are a drinker and I like a wine or a cider but not to extremes, daily as Grace was.
So we caught up after many years and she was not as bad and of that I was glad. She had a very dark side, Grace, which came out with too much drink, hating her family and wounded by the past.
Her daughters didn't speak to her and she did not understand the fact that when she was a lush, she had done a lot of damage. To all, mostly herself, but she was sharp and wise like a sly old bird, and funny and outrageous and I liked that about her.
One wet and windy night she arrived on my front doorstep with a can of beer in one hand and a packet of ginormous fags in the other, her brand new car still running in the Driveway.
"H, Janette,", she said in her throaty whisper,
"Saw your light on, thought I'd pop in, not disturbing you am I?"
I ushered her in, I was taking care of Yvette's 3 boys at that stage, they were gone, both of my boarders were gone, one to be returning later.
One that Grace had taken a bit of a fancy to and so we settled down for some girly time and a good chat in peace and quiet for once and it was great.
Grace returned to her car and brought in more beers and we had some and talked ourselves out. Then I could sense she was waiting for something, and I was dying to go to bed by this time.
I realised she was stretching the time out for the boarder she fancied to return home and he soon did much to me relief.
He was also tired and was going to retire for the night but Grace chatted him up a little, very arch in her flirting and he just laughed and went to bed.
She had no idea what to do then, the beers run out. She asked if she could go and ask the boarder for a spare can as he had a bar fridge in his room, she crept down the hall carefully her tiny high heels beating a tattoo on the polished boards.
She was given her beer and she came out as I made a coffee and yawned. I didn't want to be rude, but bloody hell it was 2am in the morning and I had to be up early in the morning. Finally she left and I heaved a massive sigh of relief when I could at last close the front door on her.
Not,because I hadn't enjoyed her company, I had, but because I was aching from moving furniture earlier in the day. Bone achingly weary and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, which I knew was heated, and relax some weary bones. And as soon as I had to sunk into my lovely brass bed,
"Ding Dong", went the doorbell.
"Fuck!" Is all I thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck !
Grace was on the front door step, cringing, all apologetic but clearly agitated. I invited her in but she quelled me with a glance,
"you have to come, a possum has been hit up the road and we need to rescue him"
"Oh, God, why me ?", I thought and went to fetch a towel and a shovel and a bucket, Grace bird hopping from one foot to another in agitation, behind me.
"whats the shovel for?", she asked.
"If it's too injured, Grace, " I'm going to kill it."
"What?", she almost yelled.
"Get in the car Grace, I'll drive"
So we drove up the street and sure enough there was a half dead possum on the pavement, its back legs crushed and it was trying to crawl away, poor thing.
So I popped the boot and dragged out the towel and moved quickly behind the injured animal. I had asked Grace to stay in the car, but out she came anyway and crossed to the animals head.
And just as I threw the towel over the creature, Grace decided to bend down and pat it, murmuring in her slightly fuzzy breath,
"it's going to be alright, sweetheart"
And I could see what was going to happen and I screamed at her, one long drawn out note,
" Nooooooooooooooo"
And bang the possum bit her, right on the webbing of her outreached hand, a glisten of white teeth slicing through her flesh, slung taut between thumb and pointer finger. An almost in slow motion an arc of blood shot out over Grace's face.
"FAAAAAARRRRRKKKKK", she screamed out over the entire neighbourhood
and started leaping up and down, I grabbed the towel back off the still struggling possum and wrapped it around Grace's hand and pushed her into the car.
"FAAAAAARRRRRRKKKK", she still screamed and I drove like a woman demented back to my house. I helped her into the house, and we washed it but would not allow me to put anything on it. No antibiotics, she was a seventh day Adventist, and no wound aid or savlon, thanks.
She shakily lit a cigarette and she was probably dying for a drink but she'd drunk it all. So she said,
"Ring the RSPCA",
I had already picked up the phone to call an ambulance, so switched it to RSPCA and after a long while a very sleepy man answered and I told him what had happened.
He instructed me on what to do to trap it and to be very careful as it had bitten my friend. I needed no second warning.
"Great! Rabid animal and now a bleeding friend, what the hell ??" was my uncharitable thought.
I got Grace back in the car, hand held across her body in a make shift sling and we returned to the possum. The man on the phone had already told me, they would euthanize it but I didn't relay this to Grace as she was not looking too well.
But once again I asked her to remain in the car and once again she didn't.
But this time she held back and I put a big bucket in front of the possum, scooped his back legs forward gently with the shovel and he crawled into the bucket and I grabbed it and put a lid on, with holes punched in. I carried him towards the open boot and Grace was by my side in an instant,
"Why are you putting it in my boot?", she said, darkly troubled for some reason,
"It's new"
I answered calmly, although I wanted her to just shut up ! Hadn't she done enough damage already?
"Where would you rather me put it Grace, in the car with you?. it's a wild animal, it's injured and I'm guessing you don't want it crawling around on the inside of your nice new car, pooing and weeing and bleeding, do you?"
"Good plan with the boot", she said and I shut it.
So we drove 40 minutes to the RSPCA in Blackburn, deposited Possy, the attendants took one look at it and went to say something. I stopped them with a hush finger, Grace having her back to us at that moment.
I knew it was beyond saving but I didn't want Grace to know that, she begged me to ring up the next day and find out how Poss was and I promised I would.
I drove back to home and she decided she didn't want to go to the Hospital where I wanted to take her and she drove away, nursing her injured hand.
I rang her the next day and at 7am that morning she had gone to the Doctors and received needles in both cheeks of her bum, so she couldn't sit, and was to continue having them for 7 days and she had the strongest antibiotics known to man, horse pills she called them. her hand was throbbing and she was not a happy woman at all.
She ranted her misery for a while, but she knew I had tried to stop her from touching the animal so was fairly content with me.
You never knew with Grace after she had a few drinks. But she was ok and her brother told me months later, she had probably been the one that ran over it in the first place. And that was my dark thought, too.
Love Janette
Gracie is a good friend, I have known her since she was a little girl of 12, she loves a drink or ten and when I was living a few doors from her Brother, Ivan, she soon came to visit.
We hadn't been in touch for years as she was drinking too much when I had known her before, and I avoided her for a while as I wasn't a drinker. If you are a drinker, you are a drinker and I like a wine or a cider but not to extremes, daily as Grace was.
So we caught up after many years and she was not as bad and of that I was glad. She had a very dark side, Grace, which came out with too much drink, hating her family and wounded by the past.
Her daughters didn't speak to her and she did not understand the fact that when she was a lush, she had done a lot of damage. To all, mostly herself, but she was sharp and wise like a sly old bird, and funny and outrageous and I liked that about her.
One wet and windy night she arrived on my front doorstep with a can of beer in one hand and a packet of ginormous fags in the other, her brand new car still running in the Driveway.
"H, Janette,", she said in her throaty whisper,
"Saw your light on, thought I'd pop in, not disturbing you am I?"
I ushered her in, I was taking care of Yvette's 3 boys at that stage, they were gone, both of my boarders were gone, one to be returning later.
One that Grace had taken a bit of a fancy to and so we settled down for some girly time and a good chat in peace and quiet for once and it was great.
Grace returned to her car and brought in more beers and we had some and talked ourselves out. Then I could sense she was waiting for something, and I was dying to go to bed by this time.
I realised she was stretching the time out for the boarder she fancied to return home and he soon did much to me relief.
He was also tired and was going to retire for the night but Grace chatted him up a little, very arch in her flirting and he just laughed and went to bed.
She had no idea what to do then, the beers run out. She asked if she could go and ask the boarder for a spare can as he had a bar fridge in his room, she crept down the hall carefully her tiny high heels beating a tattoo on the polished boards.
She was given her beer and she came out as I made a coffee and yawned. I didn't want to be rude, but bloody hell it was 2am in the morning and I had to be up early in the morning. Finally she left and I heaved a massive sigh of relief when I could at last close the front door on her.
Not,because I hadn't enjoyed her company, I had, but because I was aching from moving furniture earlier in the day. Bone achingly weary and all I wanted to do was crawl into bed, which I knew was heated, and relax some weary bones. And as soon as I had to sunk into my lovely brass bed,
"Ding Dong", went the doorbell.
"Fuck!" Is all I thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck !
Grace was on the front door step, cringing, all apologetic but clearly agitated. I invited her in but she quelled me with a glance,
"you have to come, a possum has been hit up the road and we need to rescue him"
"Oh, God, why me ?", I thought and went to fetch a towel and a shovel and a bucket, Grace bird hopping from one foot to another in agitation, behind me.
"whats the shovel for?", she asked.
"If it's too injured, Grace, " I'm going to kill it."
"What?", she almost yelled.
"Get in the car Grace, I'll drive"
So we drove up the street and sure enough there was a half dead possum on the pavement, its back legs crushed and it was trying to crawl away, poor thing.
So I popped the boot and dragged out the towel and moved quickly behind the injured animal. I had asked Grace to stay in the car, but out she came anyway and crossed to the animals head.
And just as I threw the towel over the creature, Grace decided to bend down and pat it, murmuring in her slightly fuzzy breath,
"it's going to be alright, sweetheart"
And I could see what was going to happen and I screamed at her, one long drawn out note,
" Nooooooooooooooo"
And bang the possum bit her, right on the webbing of her outreached hand, a glisten of white teeth slicing through her flesh, slung taut between thumb and pointer finger. An almost in slow motion an arc of blood shot out over Grace's face.
"FAAAAAARRRRRKKKKK", she screamed out over the entire neighbourhood
and started leaping up and down, I grabbed the towel back off the still struggling possum and wrapped it around Grace's hand and pushed her into the car.
"FAAAAAARRRRRRKKKK", she still screamed and I drove like a woman demented back to my house. I helped her into the house, and we washed it but would not allow me to put anything on it. No antibiotics, she was a seventh day Adventist, and no wound aid or savlon, thanks.
She shakily lit a cigarette and she was probably dying for a drink but she'd drunk it all. So she said,
"Ring the RSPCA",
I had already picked up the phone to call an ambulance, so switched it to RSPCA and after a long while a very sleepy man answered and I told him what had happened.
He instructed me on what to do to trap it and to be very careful as it had bitten my friend. I needed no second warning.
"Great! Rabid animal and now a bleeding friend, what the hell ??" was my uncharitable thought.
I got Grace back in the car, hand held across her body in a make shift sling and we returned to the possum. The man on the phone had already told me, they would euthanize it but I didn't relay this to Grace as she was not looking too well.
But once again I asked her to remain in the car and once again she didn't.
But this time she held back and I put a big bucket in front of the possum, scooped his back legs forward gently with the shovel and he crawled into the bucket and I grabbed it and put a lid on, with holes punched in. I carried him towards the open boot and Grace was by my side in an instant,
"Why are you putting it in my boot?", she said, darkly troubled for some reason,
"It's new"
I answered calmly, although I wanted her to just shut up ! Hadn't she done enough damage already?
"Where would you rather me put it Grace, in the car with you?. it's a wild animal, it's injured and I'm guessing you don't want it crawling around on the inside of your nice new car, pooing and weeing and bleeding, do you?"
"Good plan with the boot", she said and I shut it.
So we drove 40 minutes to the RSPCA in Blackburn, deposited Possy, the attendants took one look at it and went to say something. I stopped them with a hush finger, Grace having her back to us at that moment.
I knew it was beyond saving but I didn't want Grace to know that, she begged me to ring up the next day and find out how Poss was and I promised I would.
I drove back to home and she decided she didn't want to go to the Hospital where I wanted to take her and she drove away, nursing her injured hand.
I rang her the next day and at 7am that morning she had gone to the Doctors and received needles in both cheeks of her bum, so she couldn't sit, and was to continue having them for 7 days and she had the strongest antibiotics known to man, horse pills she called them. her hand was throbbing and she was not a happy woman at all.
She ranted her misery for a while, but she knew I had tried to stop her from touching the animal so was fairly content with me.
You never knew with Grace after she had a few drinks. But she was ok and her brother told me months later, she had probably been the one that ran over it in the first place. And that was my dark thought, too.
Love Janette
