Despite feeling fatigued and all-around punky from my illness I decided to shuffle to work anyway -- especially since I'm taking time off to hang out with The Kids when they visit from Florida.Anyway, I was in the shower defunkifying myself from a day of sickbed inertia when a familiar foul smell wafted through the bathroom window. Yeccch, I thought. Some morning commuter must have run over a skunk. But the smell was eye-wateringly powerful. That smells like it's coming from behind the garage. My virally compromised brain cells, normally slow to connect in the morning anyway, were particularly sluggish today; it took a good 30 seconds, and the jangling of dog tags outside, to put together the puzzle.
Oh. My. God.
"Hodey," I called out to my equally disease-ridden partner, in the living room trying to revive with a cup of coffee, "I thig dere's a skug oudside. Add da dogs are oudside."
I heard a screen door. More jangling. Finally FT spoke.
"I hab sub good dews," she breathed. "Odly wud dog god skugged. Add I cad sbell id addyway."
I, however, could.
Now, Cassie can be a smart dog -- even scary-smart, like when she spends hours lying on the porch in a mysterious, thoughtful reverie, or when she plays practical jokes on us that actually make her smile. On the other hand -- just when you start anthropomorphizing her a little too much, she does something so utterly doggy that just it takes your breath away...sometimes literally, usually involving deer poo generously self-smeared all over her back and head. But this morning it was skunk. Lucky us.
And these doggy incidents always -- always! -- without fail occur right before we leave for a trip, or before company shows up, or before I go to work.
FT -- probably because she has the life experience of living with small boys -- was matter-of-fact about the whole thing; my head literally hurt from trying to figure out the logistics of fixing this odiferous problem, so I hurried up and went to work before I found myself, long after the fact, yelling at Cassie for the crime of being a dog. Thank God I don't have children, some of you are probably thinking.
6 comments:
OMG. I still remember the night when the skunk came into the open porch and sprayed the dog through the screen door of our house. We all, dog, house, and people, stunk for a week. People avoided us in stores.
Time heals.
Washing the dog in tomato juice is the solution I have heard. Like anybody really keeps enough tomato juice on hand to wash a dog ...
Oh, ps, that's horrible.
Tomato juice. Or a solution of Skin-So-Soft, Ivory liquid, and water (with a little vinegar for good measure. This second mix also repels fleas.
:-)
It's not as if those of us with children don't have the same struggles to take things "as they are." I would have likely had myself a little nutty right there had I been in your shoes!
Amen to rev scott!!! I love my son dearly, but sometimesw I feel like I should stick the woprds "HE IS ONLY THREE YEARS OLD" (please accept that, i know it's yelling but i'm yelling at myswelf) on the inside of my glasses as a constant reminder
Yes, what they said. And you made me a little nervous -- since OHP and Rusty are out in our woods camping as we speak. So far so good. Actually I'm much more worried about porcupines than skunk, though.
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