A few weeks ago, there was a newspaper column encouraging people to love their animal neighbors–even the stinky and destructive ones (i.e., skunks and raccoons)–because, “after all, they were here first.” I don’t know where that writer lives, but as for myself I live in a house that is one-hundred-plus years old; the only way our resident skunks and raccoons could have been here first is if they are the animal versions of Jack LaLanne.
Still, I understood her point (“Why can’t we all just get along?”), and can even recall a time in my life when I, too, would have proposed interspecies tolerance for all. That, however, was before the incident that has come to be known as “The Stinking.”
That’s right: Dude–we got skunk’d.
By “we” I mean my entire house–all one-hundred-plus years of it. Every nook, every cranny, and every single item inside of it–including every man, woman and child. (Especially child, but more of that later). And what did we do to deserve this? Not a thing. In fact, in all likelihood the vengeful sprayer was probably fighting with one of his/her own companions in the crawl space under our house. (This begs the question: if even the skunks can’t stand being around each other, how am I supposed to?) And so: one minute I was lying in my bed asleep, and the next thing I knew I was trying to wake myself up enough to not throw up.
I tried to go back to sleep, but no matter how much I willed my sleeping self to breathe through my mouth I still ended up taking in a nice big snootful every time I fell back asleep–which meant that I still ended up waking up with the urge to hurl. (And for all of you people out there who are saying, “Hey, I kind of like the smell of skunk,” know this: what might be considered a “smell” as you drive past it on the open highway becomes an absolute physical “presence” when trapped in the confines of a small house). Trying to cover up the stench didn’t work, either: neither air freshener nor incense were strong enough to stand up to the “eau de p.u.,” and even applying various “anti-funk” products directly to my nostrils didn’t help (by the time the night was over I had shoved more stuff up my nose than Kate Moss at an after-hours Oscar party). In the end I decided that, as with all wounds (even the olfactory ones), the only thing that was really going to work was time.
Or so I thought.
Five hours later I sent what I considered to be a relatively stink-free Clementine and Clyde off to school. It was approximately fifteen minutes after that that I received a call telling me to come pick up Clyde because he, “smelled too bad to stay at school.” (Clementine, being older and sneakier, obviously used her talent for faking wide-eyed innocence to throw the school bloodhounds “off the scent,” as it were.)
Now, for many children, being sent home because they smelled bad would be a one way ticket to a lifetime of therapy; Clyde, on the other hand–the boy who bops through life as if he has a continuos loop of “Don’t Worry; Be Happy,” running through his head–was fine. I, however–faced with the prospect of foregoing a much-needed nap in favor of spending the day with a five-year-old who was quite excited to have gotten out of school early–was less so. Which helped strengthen my resolve to immediately deal with the skunk situation–permanently. Don’t worry, I didn’t do anything drastic: I just got a trap that catches them alive so that they can be “relocated” humanely. Now all I need is the address of a certain “love thy neighbor” animal columnist, and I’ll be all set.