Houseguest

I awoke Monday morning with a pop! My eyes flew open and my brain was in go mode. Some mornings I would welcome being this awake and alert within seconds but this was not a stroke of good luck. This was panic. A smell had grabbed my nose and shook my brain and other senses in to an absolute terrifying fear. I smelled a skunk.

I went around the house breathing and sniffing the burning fumes of skunk perfume trying to locate where this one might be. We had a skunk under our house back before my second daughter was born. It was a nightmare, and one which I don’t feel like repeating. I thought I had sealed up all known accesses to the house and I knew the stinky scoundrel just couldn’t had gotten back in. I walked the perimeter and everything looked good. We opened up the house and hoped for the best. I then went to work and my wife left for her Mothers house.

Monday evening found the house just as malodorous as the morning. I walked the house again and this time was able to find a small opening that had been neglected. So there it is. There’s a skunk under my house. My neighbor gave me a number of heavy duty metal grates that he had made to seal up his place. I busied myself with tin snips and screws to attached them to all the questionable places. The issue is not sealing up the house, the issue is not sealing up the skunk.

The last thing you want to do is seal a smelly skunk up under your house! Which means he needs an escape path. Hence the one way door. This one way door is a wooden contraption that sits over a grate, and allows the skunk to leave but not come back. Enter in my carpentry skills. They are marginal at best. I'm no master builder it just isn't my gift. I can sum up my building abilities in one word, hammer. The hammer feels good in my hand, like a natural extension of my arm. I know how to use it and can get almost anything to yield to its persuasive powers. I like my hammer. I have an extensive set of tools and the knowledge to work each one but for some reason none of them feel as right as the hammer.

After a number of hours I modified the one way door that was built for us the last time this had happened. It was work that a ten year old would have been proud of. I secured it to an open grate, and propped it open with a stick. Now we wait. The plan is to verify that the skunk leaves. This should be apparent in two ways:

1.) The stick propping open the door should fall out.
2.) The smell should begin to dissipate.

I imagine we will be burning an inordinate amount of candles this week.

My wife and I were offered lodging for the night at J Crews and we were very thankful to get some sleep without the odor from our newest addition. All I can say is I hope the skunk doesn’t become accustomed to my house. It’s not the sort of houseguest we would be able to tolerate.