Scared Stiff

It was getting late, already dark outside. I’d been home from work for awhile now and was sitting in front of the tube relaxing.

The kids were in bed and my wife had just finished mopping the dining room and kitchen floor.

Suddenly from just a few feet away, sort of behind me, my beloved quiet was shattered by an ungodly loud, repetitive scream. I couldn’t make out an actual word, although it did seem to be some attempt at communication. I barely controlled my bodily functions as I jumped to my feet in search of, well, whatever the Hell that was!

Only a few feet away my wife stood in the doorway to the back yard, mop bucket full of dirty water in both hands, her feet appeared to have been cemented to the floor, she held that bucket as if she didn’t know what to do with it, her body rocked back and forth ever so slightly as she continued to scream. . .

AHHHH, AHHHH, AHHHH. It still seemed to me like she was trying to say something, but I couldn’t make it out.  I ran to her and looked in the direction she was facing. There, in my fenced back yard was the offending creature. Less than ten feet from our door, bathed in the porch light was the biggest skunk I’d ever seen. (OK, I grew up in the city, so it’s probably the only live skunk I’d ever seen, but it was still BIG!)

There seemed to be this invisible connection between my wife and this wild animal. They were staring at each other, far from motionless, but not really moving. My wife continued to rock back and forth, still screaming what I now understood to be “SKUNK! SKUNK! SKUNK!” The skunk had obviously been caught off-guard by the sudden glare of the porch light and the incessant noise of a lunatic banshee! This poor skunk had all four legs moving in an up and down fashion, but he wasn’t going anywhere. Thank God he was still facing us.

At that moment, I saw it happen, you know when something really bad is about to happen, the whole world seems to move in slow motion? Yeah, there was an ever-so-slight change in my wife’s posture. He saw it, too. Mr. Skunk decided it was time to move! For the briefest moment, I thought he might actually run towards us, into the house!

Movement from my right – “NOOOOO!” Too late . . . She finally decided what to do with that bucket, or at least the water in the bucket, it moved forward and the water (without much momentum behind it) fell only a foot or so away. I reached for the door, wanting to block as much of the smell as possible, the smell that was sure to follow. That’s when I realized my wife was standing in front of the door, still cemented to that same spot. Mr. Skunk on the other hand, was now truly on the move--BACKWARDS! He ran the 15 or 20 feet of the fence backwards.

Now you have to put yourself in this poor guy’s shoes . . . feet . . . place. He has this hysterical woman, still screaming like a banshee, throwing stuff in front of him and suddenly he’s being attacked from behind!

His butt hit the fence and, believing himself to be under a two-pronged attack; he did the only thing his poor little confused mind could come up with: he sprang two to three feet straight up turned in mid-air and was running before he hit the ground. Thankfully, he was too preoccupied with trying to find his way back out of the fence that kept him penned far too close to this woman, to stop and spray. As I pulled my wife behind the door she finally let go of the bucket and it hit the ground just outside the door.

We lived in that house for another two years or so, not once did we ever see another skunk. I guess word gets around in the animal kingdom too!