Kids are notorious for having active imaginations. Even a simple pillow fort can become a wondrous jungle where their stuffed animals come to life…ah, the joys of childhood. However, sometimes a big imagination causes parents to be rightfully skeptical when their kid tells them a story that seems just outside of reality.
A mother to two daughters ages 7 and 10, Caitlin Burch is no stranger to active imaginations.
Last summer, though, Caitlin’s daughters discovered something that shocked even the adults in their household.
Caitlin told BuzzFeed News that her two daughters came to their parents’ room, claiming there was a creature in their closet.
“They used the words ‘creature’ and ‘rat,'” she said. “The 7-year-old insisted that there was something. … The 7-year-old would not sleep in her room. They sleep in their room every night, but I told her she could sleep in the guest room that night if it made her feel better.”
Caitlin and her husband checked the girls’ room and didn’t find anything, assuming it was just their imagination.
Since the family lives in the country, however, Caitlin did consider it could be a mouse so she set up some traps.
A few days later, the oldest daughter came running back into Caitlin and her husband’s room and her husband went again to check out the “creature.” But this time, he discovered the girls were right all along.
The “creature” was, in fact, a possum who had been living in their daughters’ room for three days.
“It had crawled into one of the dresses hanging in the closet,” Caitlin said. “It was peeking out of the neck hole.”
*shivers*
So much for an overactive imagination…
“It’s very much an ‘I told you so’ moment for them,” she said. “We realized after the fact that we should have noticed some things. Some toys knocked over. Dog’s food missing, so we know it had been in the rest of the house too. The dog never made a peep the whole time it was in the house.”
Caitlin’s husband was finally able to remove the possum after two hours of coaxing and released it back into the wilderness.
The family’s story went viral after Caitlin responded to Chrissy Teigen’s tweet about her daughter’s hamster vanishing.
Hi this possum was living in my children's bedroom for 3 days before we believed them. pic.twitter.com/q2XwUjtkbV
— B-girl Caitlin (@itsjustcaitlin) March 12, 2019
“My girls have thought this whole thing was hilarious. I told them my next tattoo is definitely going to be a possum or opossum, I don’t even know which one it actually is,” Caitlin said.
And Twitter was shook.
— JennAndTonic (@JennRoberts78) March 12, 2019
— (((jobetta))) (@jobetta) March 12, 2019
I’m dying over here! Lmao!!! Did they tell you it was a possum, or… what did they tell you??? Omg ?
— ♡♡♡Monzter☆The☆Sorceress♡♡♡ (@MonzterMagic) March 12, 2019
And they tried to tell you?! ? Like “I cant color because there’s a giant mouse in the markers?”
— Hide Your Airplanes, Hide Your Cows! (@ThusSpokeStella) March 12, 2019
Are your kids scarred for life!?! I would be! I still have nightmares about one in my garage! Can’t imagine it IN my house, much less bedroom!
— Mariah ✨ (@tmpckn6) March 12, 2019
Throw the whole room away.
— Phoebe Thompson (@bpurpleb001) March 12, 2019
h/t BuzzFeed