Remember being in the family car on a summer trip to the beach and your parental unit ran over an already- run-over skunk? The heated rubber, clinging-like-smoke- stench that filled and followed the vehicle for the next few miles? Remember the screaming and nose-holding and fake gagging and the inevitable yelling (from the front seat): Will you kids stop it?! It's only a skunk!!
Remember?
Yesterday, after tutoring, I had to make a trip to the drugstore. I told Dad I was going: where I was going:told him my return approximation.
Dad waved me on outside.
It was about one hundred degrees in the street.
Earlier, neighbors had "alerted my father" that, "your daughter left her back windows down in the Subaru"--mainly because where I am parking the car is now absolutely visible to the entire street. No tickets but no privacy, either.
My father "alerted me", and gave me the "you better get out there and do something" lecture even as I was changing my clothes...so, he knew I was not going to be long, drugstore sidetrip or not.
On the way, in the drive-thru line at the store, my car simply died. Radio, air, headlights, everything just cut out. All the warning lights flashed. People began honking. The lady at the window was waving madly, while I tried to explain, two feet below her sight line. The manager came out and demanded to know if I had triple A. She told me she was sending "two guys to push your car out of the lane". I explained it was stuck in park; they wouldn't be able to move me. We then discussed my "preferred garage for towing".
I went to the ''get out of long explanations for free" card: I'm from California...
Immediately, there were three people at the window. All were smiling, knowingly.
I kept fiddling with the usual stuff: steering wheel, ignition, turning everything off, finally reaching for the owner'smanual. (This has happened twice before. Always after driving, then parking for a bit. Always before my various "fiddlings" somehow worked and the car started up). Once again, something in a random order of "somethings" was the right thing. Before I even cracked the manual, the engine kicked in and I pulled out of the line.
"Have a nice day!" the teen-ager in the window waved.
Finding a spot directly in front of the house, I thanked all the saints and angels still listening to me these days, and proceeded up the steps. When I got to the front door, the screen was locked...I can't use my key in the massive wooden frontdoor if the screen door is locked...hadn't I just informed my father, like fifteen minutes earlier, that I would be back?
I ring the bell.
I can see inside.
He is watching the Red Sox, in his recliner.(I know he can't hear me on the porch.) However, he CAN hear the doorbell.
He gets up.
He goes to the backdoor...
I wait a minute then ring the front door,again.
Still, no answer.
(I know Mom is upstairs. She can hear nada, downstairs--especially if her t.v. is on or if she's on the phone.)I wait some more.
Finally, Dad comes to the front door.
"I told you, I was coming right back..."
"I thought you'd come in the back door..." he grins, sheepishly.
I follow him inside.
Immediately, a cloud of stink assails me.
(It is like my summer childhood tarbaby-in-the-station-wagon stench: skunk!)
Maeve runs into the carpeted living room, rubbing her nose and ears on all the furniture and the floor. She is dashing around as if someone is chasing her.
"Does she smell?" Dad asks, innocently.
"O my God, Dad! She got sprayed!"
The house reeks.
"Naw...maybe she got close to where the skunks are..." Dad goes into this long lecture of how one winter Maeve cornered a young skunk in a snowbank in the yard and got the full "green slime" treatment all over her. How he and Ann were in the garage, with heaters and sprayers and cans of "skun-off" for hours before they could let the dog inside. (Mom fuming from upstairs...as I know she will fume if she comes downstairs right now...) "She's just a little stinky..." Dad goes back to the baseball game.
I corner the dog.
Maybe not "green slimed", but decidedly hit--Maeve reeks of that eye-watering mouth drying scent. I get the "skunk off" from the cellar, while trying the corral the fleeing pup. I plop her in the sink--telling Dad there is no way I'm carrying her upstairs to the shower. Mom is up there and the whole bathroom will be a disaster area. For once, he agrees to the kitchen treatment.
Two long processes of "de skunker" juice, about fourteen hand- towels, my own self now "skunkified", Dad's guilty admission of: "When you left, I put her outside and then I guess I forgot she was there...she was trying to come in when I went out back to let her in...I guess she knew she'd been sprayed..."
(It wasn't the doorbell that made him go to the back door...)
"I thought you'd come in the back..." Dad shrugs.
Maeve tries to lick my nose.
Her breath smells like the rest of her.
"Dad, I don't go in the back door at night--WE HAVE SKUNKS!"
"Well, they don't usually spray--"
I know I can't win this. (I also know I have to spend the rest of the night trying to do laundry and clean up the kitchen. Where Maeve has rubbed her nose on the rugs is almost a lost cause. Febreeze does NOT take out skunk oil...trust and believe.)
I barricade the drying dog in the kitchen, reminding Dad the gates are up and not to let her out until morning. I put down extra water and piddle papers. Maeve doesn't balk.
In the morning, when Ann gets home, all I hear is how I didn't use her "special de-skunker".
Dad is in the yard, with the new hose head, wetting the yard to get rid of the residual odors. The neighbors all join in the discussion.
Ann takes over with her "remedy" and washes the dog several more times, on the back porch, Dad lending hose help. (I am the towel-boy...and the scissors-kid...and the shampoo-- dispenser...and the rug-runner...all the time getting the lecture about how Maeve is never "to be out in the yard alone after dark"...and how I should have immediately made up the seven ingredient skunk remedy instead of using the commercial batch that was at the ready.) ARRRRRRRGGGGH!
"It's only for emergencies--" Ann tells me, rolling her eyes.
"It was...Maeve was rubbing her skunked self all over the house--"
"Well, still, you should have made my recipe up..." Ann gives me no slack.
Maeve, absolutely miserable, gets toweled off once more and is allowed inside.
(She keeps giving me the dirty looks--as if I'm the one who ratted her out...)
As usual, she is shaking her coat, bouncing like a mad-woman after her baths. This is how she always is. She feels great and can be freed of the confinement of human hands and itchy soap. She is rejoicing.
Mom is now, of course, in the "good seat", downstairs.SHE begins her critique of the situation, how it is being handled, how we have all botched the job and how to do it better--after the fact--like twenty - or so hours after the fact. (I don't want to tell her that Ann has stuffed the entire dog bed into the washing machine.) Or that I have fourteen hand towels that need to be de-skunked, after. Or that the house still smells like the back of our old car in August--I let her be especially upset with my father, who still insists that the dog "didn't really get sprayed". (Right.)
Maeve is getting that "Cujo look" in her eyes.
She's had enough.
I leave her to her "mother"--Ann.
I still have to go to the drugstore to pick up my prescription.
I still have to get the car to a mechanic.
I still have to go to the bank.
I still have a ton of laundry to de-scent.
(What was I saying about karma, earlier this week?)
Remember?
Yesterday, after tutoring, I had to make a trip to the drugstore. I told Dad I was going: where I was going:told him my return approximation.
Dad waved me on outside.
It was about one hundred degrees in the street.
Earlier, neighbors had "alerted my father" that, "your daughter left her back windows down in the Subaru"--mainly because where I am parking the car is now absolutely visible to the entire street. No tickets but no privacy, either.
My father "alerted me", and gave me the "you better get out there and do something" lecture even as I was changing my clothes...so, he knew I was not going to be long, drugstore sidetrip or not.
On the way, in the drive-thru line at the store, my car simply died. Radio, air, headlights, everything just cut out. All the warning lights flashed. People began honking. The lady at the window was waving madly, while I tried to explain, two feet below her sight line. The manager came out and demanded to know if I had triple A. She told me she was sending "two guys to push your car out of the lane". I explained it was stuck in park; they wouldn't be able to move me. We then discussed my "preferred garage for towing".
I went to the ''get out of long explanations for free" card: I'm from California...
Immediately, there were three people at the window. All were smiling, knowingly.
I kept fiddling with the usual stuff: steering wheel, ignition, turning everything off, finally reaching for the owner'smanual. (This has happened twice before. Always after driving, then parking for a bit. Always before my various "fiddlings" somehow worked and the car started up). Once again, something in a random order of "somethings" was the right thing. Before I even cracked the manual, the engine kicked in and I pulled out of the line.
"Have a nice day!" the teen-ager in the window waved.
Finding a spot directly in front of the house, I thanked all the saints and angels still listening to me these days, and proceeded up the steps. When I got to the front door, the screen was locked...I can't use my key in the massive wooden frontdoor if the screen door is locked...hadn't I just informed my father, like fifteen minutes earlier, that I would be back?
I ring the bell.
I can see inside.
He is watching the Red Sox, in his recliner.(I know he can't hear me on the porch.) However, he CAN hear the doorbell.
He gets up.
He goes to the backdoor...
I wait a minute then ring the front door,again.
Still, no answer.
(I know Mom is upstairs. She can hear nada, downstairs--especially if her t.v. is on or if she's on the phone.)I wait some more.
Finally, Dad comes to the front door.
"I told you, I was coming right back..."
"I thought you'd come in the back door..." he grins, sheepishly.
I follow him inside.
Immediately, a cloud of stink assails me.
(It is like my summer childhood tarbaby-in-the-station-wagon stench: skunk!)
Maeve runs into the carpeted living room, rubbing her nose and ears on all the furniture and the floor. She is dashing around as if someone is chasing her.
"Does she smell?" Dad asks, innocently.
"O my God, Dad! She got sprayed!"
The house reeks.
"Naw...maybe she got close to where the skunks are..." Dad goes into this long lecture of how one winter Maeve cornered a young skunk in a snowbank in the yard and got the full "green slime" treatment all over her. How he and Ann were in the garage, with heaters and sprayers and cans of "skun-off" for hours before they could let the dog inside. (Mom fuming from upstairs...as I know she will fume if she comes downstairs right now...) "She's just a little stinky..." Dad goes back to the baseball game.
I corner the dog.
Maybe not "green slimed", but decidedly hit--Maeve reeks of that eye-watering mouth drying scent. I get the "skunk off" from the cellar, while trying the corral the fleeing pup. I plop her in the sink--telling Dad there is no way I'm carrying her upstairs to the shower. Mom is up there and the whole bathroom will be a disaster area. For once, he agrees to the kitchen treatment.
Two long processes of "de skunker" juice, about fourteen hand- towels, my own self now "skunkified", Dad's guilty admission of: "When you left, I put her outside and then I guess I forgot she was there...she was trying to come in when I went out back to let her in...I guess she knew she'd been sprayed..."
(It wasn't the doorbell that made him go to the back door...)
"I thought you'd come in the back..." Dad shrugs.
Maeve tries to lick my nose.
Her breath smells like the rest of her.
"Dad, I don't go in the back door at night--WE HAVE SKUNKS!"
"Well, they don't usually spray--"
I know I can't win this. (I also know I have to spend the rest of the night trying to do laundry and clean up the kitchen. Where Maeve has rubbed her nose on the rugs is almost a lost cause. Febreeze does NOT take out skunk oil...trust and believe.)
I barricade the drying dog in the kitchen, reminding Dad the gates are up and not to let her out until morning. I put down extra water and piddle papers. Maeve doesn't balk.
In the morning, when Ann gets home, all I hear is how I didn't use her "special de-skunker".
Dad is in the yard, with the new hose head, wetting the yard to get rid of the residual odors. The neighbors all join in the discussion.
Ann takes over with her "remedy" and washes the dog several more times, on the back porch, Dad lending hose help. (I am the towel-boy...and the scissors-kid...and the shampoo-- dispenser...and the rug-runner...all the time getting the lecture about how Maeve is never "to be out in the yard alone after dark"...and how I should have immediately made up the seven ingredient skunk remedy instead of using the commercial batch that was at the ready.) ARRRRRRRGGGGH!
"It's only for emergencies--" Ann tells me, rolling her eyes.
"It was...Maeve was rubbing her skunked self all over the house--"
"Well, still, you should have made my recipe up..." Ann gives me no slack.
Maeve, absolutely miserable, gets toweled off once more and is allowed inside.
(She keeps giving me the dirty looks--as if I'm the one who ratted her out...)
As usual, she is shaking her coat, bouncing like a mad-woman after her baths. This is how she always is. She feels great and can be freed of the confinement of human hands and itchy soap. She is rejoicing.
Mom is now, of course, in the "good seat", downstairs.SHE begins her critique of the situation, how it is being handled, how we have all botched the job and how to do it better--after the fact--like twenty - or so hours after the fact. (I don't want to tell her that Ann has stuffed the entire dog bed into the washing machine.) Or that I have fourteen hand towels that need to be de-skunked, after. Or that the house still smells like the back of our old car in August--I let her be especially upset with my father, who still insists that the dog "didn't really get sprayed". (Right.)
Maeve is getting that "Cujo look" in her eyes.
She's had enough.
I leave her to her "mother"--Ann.
I still have to go to the drugstore to pick up my prescription.
I still have to get the car to a mechanic.
I still have to go to the bank.
I still have a ton of laundry to de-scent.
(What was I saying about karma, earlier this week?)
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