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  • Have you ever heard someone say they were playing possum?

  • Well, humans can try to play possum, but they probably don’t do as well as the real thing.

  • When a real possum gets scared, it will flop down and play dead in hopes that the animal

  • attacking them will just leave them alone. But, the possum doesn’t do this concisely.

  • It is more like they faint. They can’t control it, they just pass out. They stay this way

  • even when picked up, poked or prodded. Most people will think the animal is really dead

  • and you probably wouldn’t know unless you listened for its heartbeat with a stethoscope.

  • Now if you want to play possum like the real thing, you need to just pass out, have your

  • lips curled back to show your teeth, foam at the mouth, have your eyes ½ shut and….well,

  • real possums then have a liquid leak out of their anus that smells really foul (like something

  • dead and rotting). Oh yeah, you could probably do most of this

  • pretty easily, but the foaming of the mouth and the foul smelling liquid, may be taking

  • it a bit too far. So there ya have it; playing possum should

  • be left to real possums that are experts at it.

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Have you ever heard someone say they were playing possum?

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