Getting Skunked: Part Two



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In case you missed Getting Skunked, Part One, you can read it here.  That was more of a symbolic experience, but today's adventure was a bit different.

When I woke up this morning, one of the pups was barking like her butt was on fire and the whole house smelled like burnt rubber.  I immediately opened all the windows and cranked up the ceiling fans, even though it was 35 degrees outside.  No doubt about it, we’d been skunked!  The smell seemed to be coming up through the floor vents, giving me the idea that the varmints were under our home.

My husband woke up twenty minutes later complaining that he was cold, and then asked what was burning.  I was still running through the house trying to find “the source” of the skunk smell.  After a few minutes, I determined that it had already burned into my brain, and where it came from really didn’t matter.

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After almost gagging on my breakfast—skunk odor really keeps you from eating—I took a shower.  God knows why, because all the laundry I had washed and folded and left in the baskets last night now smelled like Pepe Le Pew.  I hoped for the best and excitedly left the house (who’d want to stay in there?) to go see a client who had hired me to do some collaborative writing and proofing.

No sooner had I settled in at my client’s office, when the odor popped back up.  A concerned gentleman stuck his head in the office where I was working and asked if I smelled skunk.  The client I was writing with responded by spraying the entire office with Febreeze, and then asked if I would like to spray my jacket.  Needless to say, no one sat next to me at lunch!

The day finally ended and I headed home, having no idea that the skunk odor would still be so strong that it would bowl me over at the door.  My husband has recently started working from home, and he said:  “Really, you get used to it.”  I firmly disagreed.

We headed out to feed farm animals and strategize about our skunk hunt.  Two small holes were found around the AC/Heating unit (in the back) and around where the septic lines are routed (oddly, in the front).  We plugged the hole in the back with chicken wire, hoping it will force the skunk(s) out the front.  (We didn’t want them to spray the dogs, who love to run around in the back yard.)

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My Facebook friends offered helpful advice (thank you Janice, Laurie, and Deb!) about getting rid of all things skunk, but so far nothing is making a substantial difference.  Tomorrow we will stalk the skunks at sunset and wait for them to come out of the remaining hole (great weekend, eh?), and then we will close the gap.  It’s quite a gamble, as we don’t know how many skunks there might be. 

We considered an exterminator, but a friend’s bill for the same issue was $1,800.00!  (Thanks, Crystal, for the warning...)

Guess we'll see if we can choke down some dinner while savoring skunk ambience.  Maybe we'll stay in the far end of the house, where the smell isn’t quite as strong.  May have to sleep in the guest room, too, as it smells slightly better than the master bedroom.

Or we could just go out searching for the only known predator of skunks-- the horned owl.  My luck, I’d get a direct hit of skunk spray while I’m out owl-hunting.  And the owls might eat my barn cats, who are busy eating barn mice.

p.s.  My husband just came back in after doing some skunk sleuthing.  He saw one enter the hole that we left open, and it’s an albino skunk!  We’ve only seen one of those before, in the barn of a farm we decided not to buy J.



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Have you ever been skunked?  I’d love to hear about it.  Please feel free to leave a comment.

Marianne M. Smith
Writer At The Ranch
Making You Look Brilliant One Word At A Time
http://writerattheranch.com
wordsmith@writerattheranch.com