The Time I Invited A Skunk Into My House
Spectacles are made to be worn
When I was eight months pregnant I moved rather slowly – as people with aliens the size of recliners growing in their gut tend to do. Add to that a dozen times a day or so that vomit somersaulted from between my lips and the fact that I slept about as fitfully as a three year old stuffed full of ice cream and Monster drinks. Fun times.
Our adorable but protective chow chow didn’t help the sleep situation. He growled at every creak the house made and he wanted to pee during the night almost as often as I did.
So it wasn’t unusual that on one slightly stormy night around the time a sex worker would be hitting up their sixth client, our mutt whined. His head against my beer-barrel-sized belly, his purple tongue lapped at my wrist begging to be let out.
“Okay, okay,” I mumbled, wishing my husband wasn’t such a deep sleeper. I’m not exaggerating when I share that he has managed to sleep through several hotel fire alarms as well as a mouse skittering about his neck and head.
I would have to let our dog out. Because he was whining so vehemently I didn’t even grab for my glasses. Lumbering down a number of stairs with the moonlight as my guide, his barks and growls grew fiercer the closer we got to the sliding door. He rushed out before I had it halfway open, knocking me towards the stove.
“Ouch,” I winced as my lower back made contact with the oven door handle, the dish towel providing only a little padding. Rain flushed into the kitchen, glistening my bare toes as chilly wind tried to stop me from shutting the door again.
Without my spectacles everything was spotty, dark, and blurry. I grabbed for the door handle and missed, but, on the second try managed to yank it slightly. Just as it was about to close, the dog rushed in, shaking wetness from fur.
“Noooo!” I shouted, suddenly smelling that he was not merely wet from the rain. Rotten eggs assaulted my nose and tears cascaded down my cheeks. “A damn skunk got you, didn’t it?”
Dry heaves accompanied me as I shuffled him back outside and hooked the chain into his collar.
“Sorry, buddy, but you’re going to have to stay out until we can lather some tomato juice through that fur of yours!” He grumbled and rubbed his paws against his nose in a way that would’ve been cute had skunk stench and 3:00 am not been involved.
As I turned to go back in I noticed the cat ambling towards the deck. Having been a stray found huddled in our garden only a few months before it didn’t surprise us that he spent most nights adventuring the outdoors. Often he meowed in the morning to be let in, some sort of headless creature clamped between his jowls.
“You better get in here, too,” I called. “I don’t know if skunks like cats but we don’t need a second creature stunk up!”
I bent as far forward as I could hoping I wouldn’t topple forwards and wiggled my fingers.
“Here Kitty Kitty Kitty,” I half-whistled. He was moving rather slowly and between the cold deck boards and the wind my feet were starting to feel as though they were hanging out in cold storage.
“Hurry up!” I shouted as he, finally, made it within a foot of me and the door. That is when my near sighted ability kicked into high gear.
I realized this black and white ball of fur was not our cuddly but independent long-haired ball of cat. It was a skunk. Probably the one who had just been introduced to our dog.
I jumped into the house. Sliding the glass door shut, I slipped on the wet tile and tumbled to the floor. Shrieking loud enough to wake my husband I watched as the skunk turned, lifted its tail, and gave me a front row viewing of its incredible anal spray technique.
By the time my husband awkwardly retrieved me and his future son from the puddles on our kitchen floor little evidence remained. A dog whimpering in his doghouse and streaks of neon yellow Jackson-Pollocking our windowed doors was all that dual-colored vagrant left behind.
Lesson learned — even a rushed pee requires spectacles!