Or beware your hatred of possum
…..or Karma can be very quick.
Guest Post by Andi Cockroft
Every now and again, events conspire to create lasting memories – this one stands out in my mind as particularly black humour and still makes me smile and feel sympathy for a bloke both at the same time.
It was about 15 or 20 years ago when I visited the remote back-blocks to look at an old disused clay road to see if it could be repaired to a minimalistic standard such that public could use it once more.
I was fortunate to be guided by a local – let’s call him Syd to protect his anonymity.
We drove for about 25 minutes through rough overgrown tracks to a point where we could venture no further. Having viewed the damage of both a washout and large landslip, we turned round to begin our return journey and maybe imbibe at a local hostelry.
With Syd up front cutting a decent pace (maybe looking forward to a pint), he suddenly spied a possum crossing the road in front of his vehicle – a nice shiny Toyota too.
Unbeknown to me, Syd had an absolute obsessive loathing of our Brush-Tail Possum, but this became very evident as he gunned the Toyota along the clay road and succeeded in rolling and bowling this unfortunate possum.
Sadly for Syd though, as he slammed on the anchors, the Toyota slid off the road and rolled into a ditch.
Not to be one to be thwarted by such a minor deviation, Syd climbed out, just about the same time our marsupial friend picked himself up, shook himself off and sprinted up the nearest, albeit skinny, spindly tree.
Cursing loudly, Syd chased after the possum and climbed the tree following closely with each of them inching higher and higher.
It is at this point that either fate or karma (whichever you prefer) kicked in. The tree couldn’t possibly support Syd’s weight and with a loud crack, gave way.
Possum and Syd came crashing down, not without Syd making a mid-air grab for the possum’s famed brush tail.
Sadly for Syd though, although he now had the possum firmly in his grasp, as he hit the floor he was overcome by intense pain and let loose his grip – the possum lived to fight another day and scampered off.
For Syd, the outcome was not quite so bright. We found subsequently he had broken his ankle, but worse still his beloved Toyota was a right-off.
It took about 1½ hours to get Syd to hospital in excruciating pain for much of the way out of the clay road.
Just goes to show, karma can be very quick these days. Beware, you have been warned.
