Like all the males in my family, feeling remorse for a faux pas doesn't really stick. The usual response is a bit of a bemused blush, rapidly turning to angry outbursts and a long harangue about how it is not "his problem"--but circumstances or other people or the angle of the moon over the housetop,etc. This does not make them unloveable--in fact--the females of my family are notoriously forgiving of the men...but sometimes, I just want to scream in frustration!
Dad and Mom have their routines culled from sixty years of marriage. (So, I give them lots of slack just based on that mileage!) A dinner scarfed in twenty-minutes finds Mom wrapping leftovers and Dad clearing the table in time for JEOPARDY! If you are eating at a more refined pace OR if you pause for discussion of any depth, you can just sit there, abandoned, with whatever you still have on your plate, your used utensils and beverage, but they are out of there. Dad loads the dishwasher and refuses any assistance. Indeed, if you attempt more than taking your dishes to the sink, you get a stern reprimand. Okay. I get it. They are feeling independent and the ownership of their own domain. I am still the "child visitor" and need to get out of the way--even as they whisper to friends that having the kids home again doesn't mean that ANY of the housework gets done--sigh. Dad also insists that the dog must go outside, after OUR dinner, even if she has already gone outside to do her "business" after her earlier dinner. Again, no problem in theory. However, Dad is prone to forgetting that he put the dog in the yard. Then, he goes off to watch t.v. at optimum volume. He neither remembers she is outside nor that the days are getting shorter and the night-living things are coming to visit earlier nor can he hear her bark to be let back in.
That is their routine.
Mom is even deafer than he is, now sitting literally two feet from the giant t.v. with the enhanced dolby speakers on at full blast.
No one hears Maeve barking but me, upstairs, typing, in my room on the second floor.
Hollaring for them to let her in does nothing.
So, as with many evenings, I run downstairs and out the back door. However, this evening, the skunk-of-all-skunks has arrived before me...
Maeve can't pass up a good skunk. She has never learned. (Must take lessons from my father.) The blast of skunkfunk hits me full as I open the back door. I reach down, unhooking her from her run and she bolts past me into the house. The King Skunk is strutting in his blue cloud, right by Ann's car. (Ann is asleep, also on the second floor, at the opposite end of the house.) Before I can catch Maeve, she has run into the middle of the livingroom, rubbing her nose and ears on rugs, furniture, and yelping at the parents for not letting her in earlier.
Mom is screaming--finally able to smell the dog--and Dad, in typical MinnsMaleStyle, denies that Maeve has even been sprayed! When he sees Mom's reaction, he admits: "Well, it isn't like the last time...it's not that bad..."
Then he and Mom get into a huge argument about why neither of them remembered putting her out in the yard after dinner...I scoop the dog up, getting now skunkified myself, and haul both our butts upstairs to the shower.
Up there, I strip down for battle, grabbing the peroxide and a bottle of giner and lemon body wash and the dog shampoo and finally the Skunk De-Odor rinse that never really works, but is a quick fix until a better remedy can be mixed.
By then, Ann is awake and barking orders about using her "special recipe". I can neither take the time to leave the dog, re-clothe with the only clothes I have in the bathroom, go downstairs and dig for ingredients (while stinking up everywhere I walk or touch), mix them in a large and "special container", come back up and expect Maeve will be blithely waiting in the shower for me...so I just get busy shampooing her with the stuff at hand. Ann, cussing and huffing, still half-asleep before her night shift at the hospital begins, pulls together her skunkjuice, yelling at everyone about how this is the only thing that will work and why don't we ever use it as a first defense--then admits that you can't mix it up and keep it at hand. The chemicals break down over time, so it has to be made fresh, each use.
Ask me if I care, now that I'm as stinky as the sopping dog...
When Ann comes up, I wrap a towel around myself and back out of the shower, only to meet Mom, who is opening windows, and all the shades on the second floor--giving a good peep to the neighbors. Meanwhile Dad is denying that the skunks come out this early and he thought Mom or I had taken in the dog and its Ann's fault for scattering so much birdseed for the squirrels and chipmunks and that the windows should be kept shut because the skunk smell isn't from the dog (It is!) but from the skunks still in the yard (Also true!).
Ann, meanwhile, doses the dog and the shower with her "special sauce", three times the dog goes through this. Ann pauses to take pictures on the second phase of the operation. Maeve, half -squinting, not even whimpering, knows that once Ann gets hold of her, the routine allows for no complaints nor protests. There is no escape. Meanwhile, Ann assures me she is leaving enough of the secret potion for me to use, when Maeve is de-skunked. I can also have the joy of cleaning the bathroom and laundering all of my skanky clothes and the towels we have used...Lovely.
It is not exactly a scene from "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo", but it ranks close.
Maeve emerges whiter and brighter and fairly non-offensive.
The bathroom--and me--another story, completely.
It seems that when I grabbed her, carrying her like the Baby Jesus, upstairs, her most skunky side was pressed against my chest, so I am as smelly as she was...
There is nothing to do but use the "special sauce" on myself.
And that is how my evening goes.
This morning, Dad is making coffee in the kitchen and whistling and happy. He refers to the skunk episode as if it were an act of God (Maybe it was...) and he had little blame. Of course. He will not switch his routine after dinner. Skunks do not come out that early. Ann is nuts to think they do--and anyway, she is the one spreading the birdseed. He can't smell anymore skunk odor, not even in the yard, so, what's the problem? Why is everyone still upset? This is just life. Period.
Meanwhile, Mom has gone through several bottles of Febreeze-for-fabrics, uncaring about the poisonous contents. I have done six loads of laundry from the night's adventure. The odor of skunk hangs on the morning air--even as rain in the yard just intensifies it. But, Maeve smells nice.
She only wants to sit in her bed in the kitchen--seeing as it, unlike Ann's bed, upstairs--doesn't reek. She won't even go upstairs to watch t.v. by the air conditioner--her place of queenly comfort in the warmer weather. All the rugs downstairs have to be washed, again, too.
My hair looks like a brillo pad--not in a good way.
My favorite jeans may not be salvaged. A tee-shirt sent a few summers ago by a best friend from New York was a casualty, too. My bedroom is scented with Febreeze, Mom's pot-pouri scented candles, baking soda and peroxide, and lemonginger body wash.
Thank God I didn't get called in to substitute teach this morning.
Dad and Mom have their routines culled from sixty years of marriage. (So, I give them lots of slack just based on that mileage!) A dinner scarfed in twenty-minutes finds Mom wrapping leftovers and Dad clearing the table in time for JEOPARDY! If you are eating at a more refined pace OR if you pause for discussion of any depth, you can just sit there, abandoned, with whatever you still have on your plate, your used utensils and beverage, but they are out of there. Dad loads the dishwasher and refuses any assistance. Indeed, if you attempt more than taking your dishes to the sink, you get a stern reprimand. Okay. I get it. They are feeling independent and the ownership of their own domain. I am still the "child visitor" and need to get out of the way--even as they whisper to friends that having the kids home again doesn't mean that ANY of the housework gets done--sigh. Dad also insists that the dog must go outside, after OUR dinner, even if she has already gone outside to do her "business" after her earlier dinner. Again, no problem in theory. However, Dad is prone to forgetting that he put the dog in the yard. Then, he goes off to watch t.v. at optimum volume. He neither remembers she is outside nor that the days are getting shorter and the night-living things are coming to visit earlier nor can he hear her bark to be let back in.
That is their routine.
Mom is even deafer than he is, now sitting literally two feet from the giant t.v. with the enhanced dolby speakers on at full blast.
No one hears Maeve barking but me, upstairs, typing, in my room on the second floor.
Hollaring for them to let her in does nothing.
So, as with many evenings, I run downstairs and out the back door. However, this evening, the skunk-of-all-skunks has arrived before me...
Maeve can't pass up a good skunk. She has never learned. (Must take lessons from my father.) The blast of skunkfunk hits me full as I open the back door. I reach down, unhooking her from her run and she bolts past me into the house. The King Skunk is strutting in his blue cloud, right by Ann's car. (Ann is asleep, also on the second floor, at the opposite end of the house.) Before I can catch Maeve, she has run into the middle of the livingroom, rubbing her nose and ears on rugs, furniture, and yelping at the parents for not letting her in earlier.
Mom is screaming--finally able to smell the dog--and Dad, in typical MinnsMaleStyle, denies that Maeve has even been sprayed! When he sees Mom's reaction, he admits: "Well, it isn't like the last time...it's not that bad..."
Then he and Mom get into a huge argument about why neither of them remembered putting her out in the yard after dinner...I scoop the dog up, getting now skunkified myself, and haul both our butts upstairs to the shower.
Up there, I strip down for battle, grabbing the peroxide and a bottle of giner and lemon body wash and the dog shampoo and finally the Skunk De-Odor rinse that never really works, but is a quick fix until a better remedy can be mixed.
By then, Ann is awake and barking orders about using her "special recipe". I can neither take the time to leave the dog, re-clothe with the only clothes I have in the bathroom, go downstairs and dig for ingredients (while stinking up everywhere I walk or touch), mix them in a large and "special container", come back up and expect Maeve will be blithely waiting in the shower for me...so I just get busy shampooing her with the stuff at hand. Ann, cussing and huffing, still half-asleep before her night shift at the hospital begins, pulls together her skunkjuice, yelling at everyone about how this is the only thing that will work and why don't we ever use it as a first defense--then admits that you can't mix it up and keep it at hand. The chemicals break down over time, so it has to be made fresh, each use.
Ask me if I care, now that I'm as stinky as the sopping dog...
When Ann comes up, I wrap a towel around myself and back out of the shower, only to meet Mom, who is opening windows, and all the shades on the second floor--giving a good peep to the neighbors. Meanwhile Dad is denying that the skunks come out this early and he thought Mom or I had taken in the dog and its Ann's fault for scattering so much birdseed for the squirrels and chipmunks and that the windows should be kept shut because the skunk smell isn't from the dog (It is!) but from the skunks still in the yard (Also true!).
Ann, meanwhile, doses the dog and the shower with her "special sauce", three times the dog goes through this. Ann pauses to take pictures on the second phase of the operation. Maeve, half -squinting, not even whimpering, knows that once Ann gets hold of her, the routine allows for no complaints nor protests. There is no escape. Meanwhile, Ann assures me she is leaving enough of the secret potion for me to use, when Maeve is de-skunked. I can also have the joy of cleaning the bathroom and laundering all of my skanky clothes and the towels we have used...Lovely.
It is not exactly a scene from "Here Comes Honey Boo Boo", but it ranks close.
Maeve emerges whiter and brighter and fairly non-offensive.
The bathroom--and me--another story, completely.
It seems that when I grabbed her, carrying her like the Baby Jesus, upstairs, her most skunky side was pressed against my chest, so I am as smelly as she was...
There is nothing to do but use the "special sauce" on myself.
And that is how my evening goes.
This morning, Dad is making coffee in the kitchen and whistling and happy. He refers to the skunk episode as if it were an act of God (Maybe it was...) and he had little blame. Of course. He will not switch his routine after dinner. Skunks do not come out that early. Ann is nuts to think they do--and anyway, she is the one spreading the birdseed. He can't smell anymore skunk odor, not even in the yard, so, what's the problem? Why is everyone still upset? This is just life. Period.
Meanwhile, Mom has gone through several bottles of Febreeze-for-fabrics, uncaring about the poisonous contents. I have done six loads of laundry from the night's adventure. The odor of skunk hangs on the morning air--even as rain in the yard just intensifies it. But, Maeve smells nice.
She only wants to sit in her bed in the kitchen--seeing as it, unlike Ann's bed, upstairs--doesn't reek. She won't even go upstairs to watch t.v. by the air conditioner--her place of queenly comfort in the warmer weather. All the rugs downstairs have to be washed, again, too.
My hair looks like a brillo pad--not in a good way.
My favorite jeans may not be salvaged. A tee-shirt sent a few summers ago by a best friend from New York was a casualty, too. My bedroom is scented with Febreeze, Mom's pot-pouri scented candles, baking soda and peroxide, and lemonginger body wash.
Thank God I didn't get called in to substitute teach this morning.
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