Skunk-ed

I had plans to write about food – the meals that have graced our table this past week as well as the delicious braised chicken I tackled this evening.  I had plans to write about how lovely our little kitchen looks, and how our living room is improving as we wade through the boxes, and how we found a dresser for the bedroom and that is making such a difference (especially since Z is dominating the closet right now, and it’s a large closet too!  This will change soon.)  My plans are all for naught, though, because there is a skunk under the house right now.  This very minute.  Even as I am typing, there is a skunk, less that ten feet away from me (but separating by walls and floor and such.)

Story:

E: [sitting at the dining table, typing; pauses] What is that noise?

Z: [grading papers while sitting in the big, black chair; mutes television] What?

[Silence]

E: [brow furrowed] Well, now it’s not there.  But I heard it just a minute ago; it sounded like rain on a tin roof, but right outside the window.

Z: [un-mutes the television]

E: There it is again!

Z: [turns the volume down; listens]

[Distinct sound of scratching and scrabbling coming from outside, by the window]

Z: [gets up like a good husband; grabs keys; goes outside]

[Silence]

Z: [re-enters] It’s some sort of small animal. [Walks into the hall]

E: What if it’s a ‘possum*? Are you going to hit it with something?

Z: [Calling from the bedroom] Yes.  Where are my golf clubs?

E: In the hall closet.  The smelly one**.

Z: [holds breath and enters closet; re-emerges with golf club; heads toward front door] It’s probably a skunk and I’m going to get sprayed…

So, Z wanders over to the side of the house.  By this time, I’ve followed him out onto the front porch.  I can hear him poking at something with the golf club, but it has the same tin-roof-rain sound that I heard earlier.  Because of the way the front door swings out, I can immediately see him.  Then, all of sudden he is hurrying back toward the front steps.

Z: [bewildered] Why is there a skunk in a cage under my house?

E: …what?

And then I can see it: black and white, the same color, size, and build of my favorite cat back at my parents house, nosing through a section of wire.  It’s kind of cute, really.  I am stricken with sorrow at the fact that it is trapped in a wire cage.  At the same time, I didn’t want either of us going near it.  We both have obligations tomorrow and smelling like skunk would not be okay.  Also, I had a vague recollection of someone outside the window early this morning.  “Why would someone trap a skunk in a wire cage under someone else’s house?”

Initially, Z was going to try and un-latch the cage and scare it off.  However, he decided to go ask the neighbor if she had any idea what was going on.  She did.

Apparently, skunks are common around here and a real nuisance.  The someone who had been outside the house this morning was wildlife control setting up a perfectly legitimate cage.  Whew.  The most amusing bit?

Z: Yeah…she said this one’s early.  They usually don’t get into the traps until around midnight.

And that is how I came to be writing about skunks.  Instead of food.  Cheers to three weeks of marriage.  And wildlife.

Notes:
*Z absolutely loathes ‘possums.
**We are fortunate to have two hall closets.  Fortunate because A) we need the space, and B) I am drying my wedding bouquet in one closet…and it absolutely reeks.  (But I can’t throw it out because I am sensitive and attached and will have emotional issues if I throw it out.)

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