I bake for possums

Back in October, I was up late one Friday night baking cookies to take to Chad's parents the next day. It had gotten to be 1:30 a.m. by the time I put the last pan in the oven. I set the timer and went into the living room. Chad was out cold on the couch, so I laid down on the love seat to watch some TV until the timer went off.

The next thing I knew, I woke up, saw that it was 3 a.m., and noticed that it smelled like I had left the oven on. I got up to turn it off, and about halfway to the kitchen, I remembered that I had left a pan of cookies baking. "F#(k!!!" I rushed to open the oven, only to find a pan of twelve smoking black charcoal briquettes. I took the pan out to the back porch and placed the charred cookies on a plastic saucer that happened to be sitting there. I went inside, opened a window to air out the burned smell, and started to clean up the cookie-making dishes. All of the sudden, I heard some strange sounds on the back porch - very loud chewing and gnawing sounds. I looked out the window, and there was a possum chowing down on the saucer of cookies. He was eating so many that I got tired of watching him, so I went back to the sink. I heard some even stranger noises a few minutes later. This time it was hacking, gagging, and retching, like the thing was going to puke its guts out. I peeked back out the window, only to see him running away from the house. I checked the porch and saw no signs of vomit, just a saucer of black crumbs and only three remaining cookies. Thing thing ate nine cookies! It's important to mention that these were oatmeal raisin cookies, made with lots of extra-hearty old-fashioned oats. When a person eats too many of these, there can be some digestive consequences. I can only imagine the world of hurt that little possum must have been in, especially considering that they had been reduced to almost pure carbon!