Eric Hertlein’s grandmother loves animals and thinks nothing of giving some food, comfort, and affection to the local stray cats.

The Kansas woman even has an enclosed porch where she allows them to sleep when it gets cold outside.

But one day when Hertlein went to visit his grandmother, he noticed something alarming among the strays she had let in. One of them wasn’t a cat at all!

Curled up in one of the cat beds, probably annoyed that its cover was about to be blown, lay an opossum!

Neither his grandmother nor her strays seem to notice or care that one of these things was not like the others.

For her part, the kind woman really thought it was a cat. It had wandered in with the rest and acted just like a stray feline. She had named it Tete.

“She reassured me it was one of her cats,” Hertlein told The Dodo. “I told her it wasn’t what she thought it was.”

Not one to judge appearances, she wasn’t quite sure why her grandson was freaked out. Then he burst out laughing and tried to get her to see what he did.

“I laughed for a good five minutes,” Hertlein said. “She didn’t realize what I was laughing about until I started pointing out the pointy nose and skinny tail. She didn’t realize he wasn’t a cat.”

But even when she couldn’t deny it anymore, the creature was still Tete, not just any wild creature.

“She kinda just sat there,” he recalled. “Then she got a little closer … and slowly looked up at me with the biggest grin on her face and said, ‘Well, he hasn’t bothered me yet, so I’m OK with him being here!'”

Laugh all you want, but the cats didn’t seem to let on that there was an opossum in their presence either. The duo has posited that perhaps the marsupial had been orphaned and took up with the nearest creatures.

Cats aren’t typically friendly with opossums and can sometimes attack juveniles, but these felines clearly just recognized an animal trying to get by. They happily lazed around on the porch with the interloper and shared their food.

And there was no chance that grandma was kicking Tete out – he’s one of the gang!

Hertlein told The Dodo that he wasn’t all that surprised by this grandmother’s reaction after the fact – she’s an animal-lover after all. And one that doesn’t discriminate.

“She loves animals and taking care of them whenever she can. It kind of just motivates you to do better and treat other beings better too.”

But he couldn’t resist the desire to call her out on Twitter. Along with a photo of the wildlife on the porch he posted:

“My grandma has been taking care of a possum these last couple months thinking it was just another cat lmaoo what is you doing grams”

Now, just because this situation worked out here does not mean it’s safe to let wild animals into your home. Not all stories end so well and they can bring both disease and destruction.

Then again, plenty of commenters reported that they often saw opossums and their barn cats getting along.

In this case, nature had already taken its course and grandma simply wasn’t about to upset the balance of her furry residents.

But don’t try this at home!

Please SHARE this with your friends and family.

Source: The Dodo, Eric Hertlein via Twitter