Skunk

It’s a busy time of the year right now – when isn’t it? – and I let myself get run down. The software migration at work has left me scrambling putting out fires foreseen and unforeseen on an almost minute-by-minute basis the past two months. Patch is a two sport girl; practices and games have got us racing all over the county. Soccer is fairly regular and ritualized, but basketball practices are last minute based on available gym times and games are scheduled and rescheduled weekly. With all that stress, and with the warm and cold weather flip flops, with my working out and walking, well, I got sick.

Had to go in to work Tuesday to process payroll. Left early, changed into comfy sweats and t-shirt, and experienced the dreaded “The Chills.” Knew this could be bad. I camped out on the living room floor with three blankets and pillows and drifted in and out of consciousness over the next six hours. Thankfully, the Mrs. was home and drove Patch to her b-ball that night. Little One cooked us dinner (I didn’t eat – so right there they knew I was under the weather) and they all settled in to watch some TV.

“I smell something burning,” the wife said around 9 o’clock. The girls sensed a weird odor, too. I smelled nothing thanks to clogged nasal passages. Out of the corner of a half-closed eye I watched them range about, puzzled, trying to locate the source of the discordant smell.

I heard the back door open as they let the dog out for his final evening constitutional.

Then, chaos ensued.

Since you’ve read the title of this post, you have a good idea what happened.

Seems Charlie the dog got into a scuffle with a skunk in our fenced off backyard. How the skunk got there, I dunno. Maybe from under our deck. Anyway, the dog came racing into the house, head, torso, face, eyes, covered in yellow skunk juice. “Charlie got sprayed by a skunk!!!” The girls corralled him in his “area” by the door leading out to the deck. The wife got on the phone with the vet. The girls screamed and squealed and complained about the stench.

Me, I just laid on the floor under the blankets. Couldn’t do much else.

We learned that skunk spray can blind a dog. Charlie was whimpering and panicking. After furiously debating alternatives with zoned-out me – Petco will be closed by the time we get there! The SUV will reek of skunk! – it was decided to don old clothes, haul the dog up a flight of stairs (he’s scared to climb stairs and has never been encouraged to), put him in the tub and wash him as long as it takes to get the juice off him.

Which the ladies did. They washed him for a full half-hour, using up nearly all the dog shampoo and most of the hot water. The vet said to use a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and hand soap, which I helped Little One concoct. Then they dried the poor mutt and led him back downstairs, where he trotted back and forth, clean-smelling and able to see but still highly stressed out.

Meanwhile, the thick pungent odor of skunk settled inside the house. My wife learned that leaving bowls of vinegar out will absorb the smell, so that is what they did, in every room. All clothes and jackets were thrown downstairs for me to launder later. Then they all took turns showering and shampooing themselves. All in all, it took over ninety minutes to de-skunk the dog and house, and the girls did not get to bed until 11 pm.

I took the next day off to fight my proto-flu. The girls went to school. Around 9 I received a text from my oldest pleading for me to pick her up to take her back home to shower yet again. I did so, and when I arrived at the school’s office to sign her out, one of the secretaries immediately said to me:

“Please don’t be offended, but I have to ask: were you sprayed by a skunk?”

UPDATE:

So Little One, creative as always with her photoshop, texted this out to the family this morning: