Death to Pepe Le Pew

I have been meaning to write this post for about 10 ten days now. Not because it's all that important but more because it majorly disrupted things.

Last Wednesday night (10 days ago...wow, I was just guessing before) I was moving about my living area--the family room in the basement--and getting ready for bed. It was around midnight or a little after.

I hear this scratching and squeaking outside one of the windows. Some of our basements have deep, three-feet window wells, so it's not unheard of for something to fall in. Usually all we find are mice. Well, this was quite a bit louder than a mouse. And creepier.

I was afraid it was a person, so I went upstairs like a little kid and woke my dad up to come check and see what was outside my window :)

We slowly pulled back the curtain and shined a flashlight on it, careful not to startle whatever it was.

Lo and behold, a skunk. Well, what the heck do you do? The thing can't get out. We have no idea if it has rabies or anything like that. Also, it's dark out so it'd be tough to see if he had any friends lingering about. You don't want to go out and risk getting sprayed. (We thought of trying to put something down there to help it crawl back out, but again, the stink.)

So, our last middle of the night option was to call uptown to the police dept and see what they had to say about it. (We didn't use the emergency number, don't worry.) They sent a guy over a few minutes later.

When the cop showed up, his first solution was, "Well, I'll just go shoot it." Um. Okay.

So we went and warned my sleeping mother a gun would be fired at a skunk outside her window.

She sat upright and said she was going to be shot dead in her bed. No, really. That was her first response. I'm not even sure it was a question.

We ended up trekking out to my grandma's house at 2:30am to stay there because the stench engulfed the house. Thankfully we weren't directly hit, but the window took the blunt of it and the odor just sort of seeped through.

The upstairs/main level of our house smells fine most of the time now because it's been able to air out. However, the basement is still stinky. Not quite burning-my-eyes-and-throat stinky like it was initially, but still too gross to sleep/constant breathe.

I've been camping out upstairs on the floor in the baby's room since, while my sister's been on the living room couch. The greatest news tonight is that we hauled up a twin mattress from a non-stinky storage room downstairs that I will now use until the stench disappears from my normal sleeping area.

Anyway, here's a lesson to sum up a VERY LONG NIGHT: Shoot a skunk only if you are unable to get sprayed on your own. Or you're a cop in a small town and never get to use your gun.

P.S. The funniest thing about the skunk shooting is that the cop then decided to put the skunk in a garbage bag and then PUT IT IN HIS CAR to dispose of it. Um, not so bright. Suffice it to say that the guys who had to use the car the next day weren't so pleased with the decision.