Weird Stuff at Our House, Part 2

So yesterday morning, I'm taking the kids to the car to go to preschool, when I see this ginormous opossum walking across our driveway to our magnolia tree. Ordinarily I wouldn't be really scared of an opossum, but it was broad daylight and I remember hearing that if an opossum or raccoon is wandering around in the daylight they could be rabid. Also, this thing was kind of staggering and had his mouth open like he was panting. I rushed the boys back inside, and after Shane saw it and agreed it didn't look good, we got out the phone book to call animal control. But a Public Works truck picking up Christmas trees (cross-reference my previous post here) came along at that moment, and the driver slowed down when he saw the crazy opossum. He leaned out his truck and we discussed with him whether or not this thing was rabid. We came to the consensus that it was and he said he would call animal control. By this point the opossum had meandered out into the middle of the road and was just kind of going in circles. Shane told me to take the boys to the car (a safe distance from the road, don't worry) and he would keep an eye on the opossum. Then he went ahead and took the boys to school, and I took up watch at the door. The garbage truck driver stayed and watched the opossum too, and one of our neighbors was out watching all this from her driveway. After about 20 minutes, the animal control guy shows up, hops out, picks up the opossum by the tail, and throws it in the back of his truck like it was nothing. Is that a scary commentary on how many rabid animals he deals with each day, or is he just the Steve Irwin of animal control? Luke was completely fascinated by all of this and will probably be scared to death of opossums for the rest of his life. Shane said he walked into his little class and started telling them about the sick opossum in his yard!