Opossum breaks into liquor store, gets drunk as a skunk

This animal wasn’t playing possum in a Florida liquor store. It was truly drunk.

An opossum sneaked into Cash's Liquor Store in Fort Walton Beach the day after Thanksgiving and apparently helped itself to some alcohol, The Northwest Florida Daily News reported.

Michelle Pettis, a wildlife health technician at the Emerald Coast Wildlife Refuge, said the juvenile female opossum was brought in by a Fort Walton Beach police officer Nov. 24. He said a Cash’s Liquor Store employee at the AJ’s on the Bayou location discovered the marsupial next to a broken and empty bottle of bourbon, the Daily News reported.

“A worker there found the opossum up on a shelf next to a cracked open bottle of liquor with nothing in it,” Pettis told the Daily News. “Assuming the opossum drank it all, he brought her to us, and we looked over her and she definitely wasn’t fully acting normal.”

Pettis said the animal appeared disoriented, was excessively salivating and appeared to be pale. It did not, however, appear to be hung over, she said.

“We loaded her up with fluids to help flush out any alcohol toxins,” Pettis said. “She was good a couple of days later and was released Thursday night.”

Pettis said the drunken opossum was a first for her. She added the opossum was “fairly large” and was curious as to how she was able to break into the liquor store.

Cash Moore, who owns the liquor store, said the opossum “came in from the outside and was up in the rafters.”

“When she came through she knocked a bottle of liquor off the shelf,” Moore told the Daily News. “When she got down on the floor she drank the whole damn bottle.”

Moore added that as far as he knew, the possum was 21 years old.