An ABC panel was left speechless following the delivery of an exceptionally bizarre story by comedian Kirsty Webeck, who revealed the time she had a rat stowaway in her pants.
In the latest episode of Wil Anderson and Jan Fran’s Question Everything, Webeck detailed the unbelievable moment her early morning walk transitioned instantly from calm to carnage.
“It was the crack of dawn in Melbourne and I heard this high-pitched squeal and out the corner of my eye, I saw this rat legging it towards me,” Webeck explained.
“It went straight up my shoe, straight up my leg and into my shorts, like in the crotch. Like, it thought I was delivering a hammock to it. It was right in there.”
Webeck revealed she didn’t handle the sudden invasion well.
“I was screaming, hopping from foot to foot, running in circles, and I shook it out of my short … out the one leg,” she said.
Once free, the animal dashed away immediately. Leaving behind a flustered but curious Webeck.
“It ran around the corner but I was like, ‘I’ve gotta see what this is now’, so I’ve peeked around.
“It wasn’t actually a rat, it was a baby possum,” she revealed, prompting an audible “aww” from the audience.
Host Anderson was beside himself at the shift in tone from “horror to heartwarmed”, which Webeck said swiftly turned to “annoyed”.
“Because I was like, if it’s not a rat and it’s a baby possum, I’ve got to care for it. You don’t have to care for a rat, but you have to care for [a possum],” she joked.
The rollercoaster continued when she was on the phone to the wildlife helpline, which asked her, “is it ginger?”, which she joked felt like an inappropriate thing to ask given the animal had been in her pants.
“Turns out they weren’t asking me so they could tease it, they were asking me so they could diagnose it with thrush,” Webeck explained, revealing that she ultimately confirmed their suspicions.
The diagnosis however, left her wondering if she should get checked herself.
“I was like, if it’s got thrush and it’s been in my shorts, does that mean …”
When she eventually got the animal to the vet, she said workers wanted to make sure she washed her hands after touching it.
“I was like, ‘my hands are the least of my worries, I carried for half a block in my pouch’,” she said, sending the crowd into a fit of laughter.
The hosts nor the panellists had words to respond when she revealed that after being treated, the possum was released not far from her house and was “thriving”.
Fellow guest Dilruk Jayasinha said he had “so many questions” about Webeck’s story, including what she did to lure the possum into her shorts in the first place.
“To be fair, I was in a ringtail possum costume,” she said.