Shallowater Possum: The Masked and Misunderstood Marsupial

Facebook user "Shallowater Possum" has been gaining interest within the community using quick-witted humor, cute photos and fun and interesting facts about opossums, meant to educate and humor those that may be dealing with a cute little cat-food snatcher in their neighborhood.

The author of the page speaks in comments as if they are actually a possum, and it seriously cracks me up. All the mannerisms and references are so very...uhh...possum? By the way, they are actually called "opossums," as the term "possum" refers to a totally different little fellow that lives in Australia. I relearned that today while researching this, and I'm pretty sure that's one of those fun facts from way back in 4th grade that left my brain the second the test was over.

For the sake of this article, I will refer to those furry little love muffins as "possums."

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I reached out to Shallowater Possum to learn the reason behind the Facebook page. I did not, however, learn their identity. That doesn't matter. It's more fun this way. Here's what they had to say about the page:

On Shallowater City Forum there was a lot of discussions back in May and June about possums in people's yards. There were pro-possum contingencies, happy to see those cute little boogers frolicking in their yards, then there was a contingency of people that were like "Well they are cute but they eat the cat food!", and then there was a contingency of people that were like "Eww they are gross! Their feces will kill a horse!

The anonymous page creator was at home and annoyed with the misinformation he had read about possums and decided to set the record straight. He created the Facebook group and, by the next day, it had over 150 new friends. It's since grown to thousands.

Anyway, if you've been a victim to that adorable little possum having a snack in your yard or one of them startled you in the dark and gave you the creeps, you may not be very fond of them. They are, however, our friends, and they're also the only marsupial that lives in the United States, which makes them pretty damn specials.

Here are a few other reasons to love possums that I found on Mental Floss.

Be sure to follow Shallowater Possum on Facebook, and be nice to him if he shows up in your yard. He means you no harm.