Possum Skull

  I found a dead opossum in my yard last spring and thought I'd like to have his skull for my animal skull collection. I know, I know....but when I saw such a collection at a nature center I knew I had to have my own.
  Actually, I collect a lot of natural artifacts from the wild; feathers, fossils, nests, shells, etc. These objets d'art are my personal Smithsonian.
  I took the possum back into the woods and laid him among the rocks to let nature do its work. A day later, he had been cached by some animal - covered over with sticks and leaves. I worried he might get dragged off but didn't check on him for a few weeks because he didn't smell very good.
  When I checked in July, most of the beetle work had been done. A month later the skull was pretty clean so I brought it to the house and soaked it in a bucket of bleach water overnight then let it dry in the sun all the next day.
  The mandible had separated from the skull since the connective tissues were gone. But I wanted to display his fearsome teeth so I decided to glue the mandible halves (left and right sides) together and then glue it to the skull. After studying it for a while to make sure things were lined up correctly, I held the jaw in place while wicking in some thin CA (fast-setting super glue). I held the whole affair together for a couple of minutes to be certain the glue had cured and when I went to set it down...well, it wouldn't leave my hand. Unbeknown to me, some of the glue had soaked through to two of my fingers. After struggling for several minutes, it became obvious that this was a serious matter. I managed to open a bottle of acetone from the work bench and anointed the affected area with no effect. My struggling began peeling the skin from my fingers so I panicked and ran upstairs with the possum skull stuck in my hand and told Chris I was in trouble.
  "Alas, poor Yorick!", she cried. Clearly she didn't appreciate the gravity of my situation. I gave her a stern look and she sighed, "Okay, lets try soaking it in hot water."
  After five or ten minutes, it was still firmly attached to my hand. I looked up in alarm. Stoically, she tried to stifle her amusement but failed. I muttered, "It's really not that funny." She bravely straightened her face and said, "Hello, emergency? My husband has glued his hand to an opossum head".
  "Oh...Hi, Mrs. Beeler. We haven't heard from you in a while. He's done what now?"
  After much kneading, twisting, and peeling of skin, the skull began to soften and release. Once I was free, an incredible sense of relief washed over me, easing the anguish and pain. Gluing your hand to a possum skull rarely turns out well.
I took the skull outside and set it on a stump. Maybe I'll work on it some other time. Right now I don't even want to look at it.
It looks formidable. All those teeth!