The One With the Skunk Attack

Cooperstown
September 2007

I had just returned from a work trip. Somewhere. I think it was New York City. Having just driven back to Cooperstown, it was a Sunday night, and I was anxious to see Kami. She was taking Gunther and Angus out for a walk as I walked up to the house with my suitcase in tow.

So I said I was going to put my things up and then join her for a stroll around the block. It was about 9:30 in the evening, and our dear readers in Cooperstown know that there's not a whole lot open on a Sunday night. Remember this fact.

I'm in the bedroom, hanging stuff up, when I hear shrieking and barking coming from the street. Of course I take off down the stairs and tear around the corner onto Pioneer Street.

What I find is nothing short of mind-blowing. Gunther is on his back legs, jumping and barking. Angus is barking, spinning in circles, and pawing at his nose. Kami is jumping up and down, vomiting, coughing and sneezing.

It would be a lie to tell you that I did not think - albeit briefly - "I could get in the car and be in Pennsylvania before she noticed."

Still, I mustered my courage and politely asked what had happened. "Angus got bit by a skunk!" was the reply. In my mind, I was calm and collected. A rational problem-solver, if you will. I later was informed that I was "Acting a fool."

I asked again, "What happened?"

Angus is somewhat spastic. He's an adorable beast and I love him with all my heart, but it's true. If something surprises him, he will dive at it. Allegedly, there was a skunk in the bushes, not a yard from where Kami and Los Perros were walking. Said skunk scurried into the bushes, and Angus dive-bombed him like the Red Baron. Kami was so close, she heard the spray. Imagine the smell. Go ahead, we'll wait.

I thought, "This is where watching cartoons has suddenly turned from 'pastime' to 'helpful.'" See, we know - through the miracle of animation - where the skunk sprays, and it's not out of his mouth.

I wracked my brain trying to remember what you're supposed to do to get skunk smell out, because Angus sleeps on the bed. Remembering that tomato juice was apparently the thing to use, I told Kami to stand outside with the dogs while I went to the Stewart's gas station - the only place still open at such a "late" hour - to buy tomato juice.

When I got back, Kami was green - literally - trying not to puke. I ran inside, grabbed a raggedy towel, picked Gunther and Angus up in the towel, and put them in the bathtub. I had already put the tomato juice in the bathroom and dumped six gallons of tomato juice on them.

Meanwhile, Kami was on the computer Googling "How to get rid of skunk." As I'm in the bathroom - in my boxers, to not infect my clothes with skunk -I hear Kami yell, "Wait!!!"

I look at Gunther and Angus, dripping with tomato juice. Gunther and Angus look at me, in my drawers.

Now this is why Al Gore invented the internet: Kami found that tomato juice only makes the skunk-infected being smell like V8 Skunk (not that I can tell the difference - I hate tomato juice). So she tells me to wait while I hear her get the keys, and the door slams.

So I sit on the toilet.

While Kami is gone, Gunther and Angus start licking the tomato juice off each other, looking at me while they're doing it as if to say, "This is alright, yes?"

Fifteen minutes later, Kami bursts into the bathroom with hydrogen peroxide, liquid dishwashing soap, and baking soda. She had to speed down Chestnut Street to get to Stewart's, which closed two minutes after she got there - to buy those items.

The clerk asked what she was doing buying said items, and Kami said her dogs got sprayed by a skunk, and the clerk goes, "Wild! Some guy was in here like 20 minutes ago and bought us out of tomato juice because HIS dogs just got sprayed by a skunk."

Kami informed him that she did not have time for this, so she just ran out. Gunther and Angus are full of skunk and Heinz. So Kami whipped up this concoction, and we bathed them both.

Not kidding, Angus and Gunther slept in the bed with us that night.

Except every time it rained, if you kissed Angus on the snout, you could smell a more-than-faint skunk smell.

But we still kissed his snout.