I saw an opossum walking down my snowy road the other day. I was admiring his cute little tracks. And then a powerful childhood memory popped into my mind that I hadn’t thought about in quite some time…

When I was a child, we lived in a small house in a cul-de-sac in a 1970s Atlanta neighborhood.  The mayor at the time was Maynard Jackson, who apparently instituted curbside garbage delivery. And so, of course, we affectionately called these magnificent rolling bins of garbage “Fat Maynards!” I think their official nickname in the early 70s was actually “Herbie Curbies.” What an odd memory… but alas, I digress…

So, one evening I was told to take the garbage outside and put it in the bin. I have no idea how old I was, but old enough to take a bag of trash outside and reach the top of the giant bin to put the garbage bag in, so, maybe seven? Eight?

When I took off the lid, a giant, startled opossum reared up with his claws and fangs and hissed at me. I was absolutely terrified!! This was the real-life equivalent of the scariest monster popping out of the trashcan in the dark. A real life creature from beyond!! I don’t even think I knew what an opossum was… but how could something this scary… this ferocious… live in our trash can???

I never took the trash out again. At least as a child.

Spending so much time outside, I now have the greatest appreciation for our only marsupial, the opossum. They are known to consume thousands of ticks per season, greatly reducing the spread of tick-borne illnesses. If that alone is not the enthusiastic hiker’s guardian angel in the wild, I don’t know what is! Opossums get such a bad rap for their frightening appearance and a mouth full of 50 something sharp pointy teeth. Traumatizing childhood experiences aside, these scruffy, beady-eyed marsupials may not win beauty contests, but they’re nature’s unsung clean-up crew, devouring not only ticks, but cockroaches and even venomous snakes.

Immune to rabies and resistant to snake venom, they’re basically little under-appreciated forest friends in ratty fur coats that are apt to fall down and play dead at any moment. How cute is that? So next time you see one staring at you like it just forgot why it walked into the room, give it a nod of respect—it’s out there keeping your world a little less buggy, one awkward, waddling step at a time.