Sometimes nature really stinks
(Originally published March 2024)
It was no coincidence that, one pre-dawn morning last week, Mark and I were having almost identical dreams.
In them, we were running around warning people that the noxious gas they were smelling was flammable, and that if anyone lit a match, their house would explode.
I woke up first and immediately understood what was going on: A skunk had sprayed somewhere nearby—under our bed, if the odor level was any indication.
I lay there in the dark, my eyes watering, when Mark woke up. He sniffed and said, “Ugh, that explains it.”
I slowly leaned over the edge of the bed, hoping that I was, in fact, being hyperbolic. I saw a balled-up sock and an overdue library book under there. But, luckily, no skunk.
“A skunk had sprayed somewhere nearby—under our bed, if the odor level was any indication.”
If you’ve ever experienced close-up skunk spray, you get it; the pungency is so overwhelming that it goes beyond the olfactory. It turns your stomach and makes your lips curl.
When it was time to let our dog Thor out, I didn’t dare let him go solo as I normally would. Instead, I took him out on a leash, in case the skunk was lying in wait. (I don’t think that’s their MO, but I wasn’t taking chances.)
But leashing the dog was silly, of course; the skunk had already sprayed. I don’t how skunks work, but I assume that when their atomizers have been deployed, they’re out of firepower for a while. Or can they reload on the fly, like an action hero in a movie’s final battle scene? I should find out.
Thor has never been skunked. Whatever mighty image his name conjures, he is but a portly little rescue dog. Despite a good bit of terrier blood in him, he does not tangle with wild animals. He’s like a canine Barney Fife: quick to react to danger, but lacking courage. Rather than be a hero and jump into the action, he prefers to sound the alarm from a safe distance.
He is especially sensitive to any changes in his environment. Just a couple of weeks ago, for instance, I heard him on the front porch growling and barking, but not with the usual disapproving tone he uses with delivery drivers. He was frightened.
I looked out the window. He stood facing the road with his tail between his legs, ready to bolt toward the door if the threat should make a sudden move. Following his line of sight, I saw what had him trembling: My neighbor had put her trash can out by the road. A large black bag loomed out of the top, ready to pounce.
Another time, someone had dropped a mitten on the path we regularly walk. Thor spotted it from 30 paces and got so scared he couldn’t take one step closer. We had to turn back, lest the mitten attack us and leave us for dead.
Sure, he might get sprayed someday. But if it happens—no matter what tales of bravery he later tells his doggie friends—it will only be because of mutual startling.
Our only direct skunk incident happened years before we had Thor. Coming home late one night, we let out the cat and the dog we had at the time. Seconds later, the smell hit.
Panicking, we called the dog and, with relief, found him untouched. But Milo, the cat, had not fared as well. His face was dripping with skunk juice and he was squinting from the fumes; he had taken a direct hit at close range.
Milo was a big old former barn cat with vicious claws and a split personality; in a moment he could go from “I love you more than tuna itself” to “I will slit your throat,” and we never knew which side of him we were going to get. (We went through a lot of Band-Aids in those days.)
Our daughter, then eight or nine, said, with her nose pinched between her thumb and forefinger, “You have to give him a bath.” But we couldn’t, as our tranquilizer gun was in the shop. Time and Milo’s tongue eventually solved the problem.
On the morning of this recent incident, we were having coffee, still smelling—and tasting—the sickening vapor, when I got a text from my neighbor saying it was her dog that had been sprayed. Poor thing. Given how severe the stench was at our house, it must have been peeling paint off the walls at hers.
I replied, “That stinks.”
And, boy, did I mean it.
