Monday, August 22, 2011

It was a dark and stormy night ...

A full eight days after vacation has ended, I finally feel recovered. Not that vacation wasn't relaxing. It was the most relaxed I've been in ... well, since last vacation. But it just so happened that the weekend that transitioned me from Vacation to Real World was a DOOZIE. What with the VGF invasion and the road trip and the My Morning Jacket-ness.

B and I plunged ourselves right into the workweek on Monday morning. After a long day with reality, we decided to turn in early and try to catch up on some of the sleep we'd lost over the weekend. It had been pouring rain all day and the evening turned into one of those lazy summer nights that just begged to be put to bed. Around 10, B let the dog out one more time while I turned off the lights. Suddenly B came bursting back into the house, rain water dripping from his hair.

"HOLY SHIT THE DOG CAUGHT SOMETHING."

"WHAT?"

"HE CAUGHT A RABBIT. OR ... I DUNNO. SOMETHING ... SOMETHING ALIVE."

"IS IT STILL ALIVE?"

"I DUNNO. I DUNNO. GIVE ME THE FLASH LIGHT."

And B ran back out into the rain. I stood by the door and called for Rooney. Almost immediately, the dog came bounding across the lawn towards the back door. I opened the screen door and called him again soothingly. Such a good dog for coming when called. What a good boy. Come on here. And that's when B screamed.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO. SHUT THE DOOR SHUT THE DOOR DON'T LET HIM IN." B started running towards me.

"WHAT? WHY?"

"SKUUUUUUUUUUUUNK."

As soon as the word came out of B's mouth, Rooney reached me at the door, frothing at the mouth. And then it hit me like a wall. The stench. HOLY SHIT, ya'll. Have you ever smelled a skunk? And not the skunk smell that you drive through after someone hit a skunk on the road. The kind of skunk smell that brings tears to your eyes and lingers in the back of your throat for the entire night. The kind that you can only get when you or your idiot dog has been skunked.

I pulled the door shut, but not soon enough because the entire kitchen filled with the stench. "HOLY HELL IT'S AWFUL."

"YEAH IT'S AWFUL, IT'S A SKUNK."

"But what do we do? OH GOD tomato juice? Does that work? We don't even have tomato juice! What do we dooooo?"

I pulled out my phone and Googled dog deskunking methods as I drove to CVS. I had correctly assumed that anything I needed would be there and wasted no time in volunteering to drive.Gah knows I wasn't planning on waiting outside in the rain with a skunked dog while B went to the store. A text from Mojo came in. "Can't talk. Rooney skunked. Gaaaah."

When I got back I snapped on a pair of rubber gloves and scrubbed Rooney down with a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dishwasher soap. The rain was still pouring down. B struggled to hold on to the dog and balance an umbrella over us as I rubbed Rooney with old rags. Every time Rooney would pull to escape us, the umbrella would tip and a cascade of cold water would pour down my back.

"Oh my gah, Rooney, no, sit. Jesus, water down my back! Maybe just put the umbrella down?"

"But I'm trying to keep us dry."

"B, we're already wet. We all smell like skunk. I'm covered in hydrogen peroxide. I appreciate the effort but if you pour water down my back one more goddamned time ..."

"... Okay maybe I'll just put the umbrella down."

Two hydrogen peroxide scrub downs later, we pulled Rooney into the tub to soap him up with dog shampoo in a hopes to mask the remaining smell, of which there was a shit ton.

"I think it's working."

"It's totally not working."

And then there was the trouble of where Rooney would sleep. In case you've never met Rooney, he's kind of a bitch. He has personality ten-fold and when he doesn't get what he wants, he howls. Normally, Rooney sleeps at the bottom of our bed (I CAN HEAR YOU ROLLING YOUR EYES FROM HERE, KATYA). But there was no way we were going to bring skunk dog to bed. First, B tried to set up a pile of dirty towels in the bathroom.

"What are we going to do?" I asked B. "Just leave him here? All night? Look at him, he's miserable. Oh My gah he's so saaaaad."

Sad Rooney.

So we moved the pile of towels to the far corner of our bedroom. To our surprise, Rooney settled on the towels pretty quickly. Freshly showered and completely exhausted, B and I fell into bed. But as soon as the lights went out, it started. First it was faint. A small whine. Then it grew louder and more consistent. Then the whine became a howl. Rooney got up and moved to B's side. When B rolled over, Rooney moved to my side of the bed. He stood up on his hind legs and put his disgustingly smelly face next to my pillow and let out a long, slow howl.

I jumped out of bed and pulled Rooney back to the towels.

"Lie down. STAY ... STAY."

I turned the lights out and got back in bed. I shut my eyes, and then he was back next to my face, whining. I rolled over into the center of the bed and pulled my pillow on top of my head.

"GO TO SLEEP. LIE DOWN. NO. BAD."

An hour later, neither B nor I had slept a wink.

"JESUS CHRIST THAT'S IT." I shot out of bed, gathered the towels in my arms and threw them on the bed. Immediately, Rooney jumped up and settled onto the towels. "Fuck it, I'll wash everything tomorrow."

Finally, we fell asleep. A few hours later I woke up.

That smell. Jesus, it seemed to be getting stronger. Was that possible? Nope, Rooney had just gotten closer. He had left the foot of the bed and wedged himself between my body and B's body. His head, which had been hit with the greatest concentration of skunk, was against my stomach.

"Oh, GAH BLEGH EW. Get down, get down, get down."

The rest of the night was a sequence of me shoving Rooney down to the foot of the bed, only to wake up an hour or so later with Rooney's body tightly wedged between B and I. It took me days to get the smell out of my head. Everywhere I turned, I felt like I was being followed by eau de skunk. I sniffed everything suspiciously. Pillows, couches, rugs. Everything was under scrutiny. Everything that could fit in the washing machine took a spin. Anything else -- the clothes we were wearing when we bathed him, his collar, his leash -- I threw in the trash.

It's been a full week since The Incident, and Rooney still stinks. B took Rooney to PetCo as soon as they opened on Tuesday morning and put him through a three-hour de-skunking process. THREE. HOURS. His howls could be heard throughout the entire store. NOTHING will rid him of this stench. I assume the only thing to do now is to wait it out. Just waiting. And remembering not to get too close to his face when we pet him. Blegh.

2 comments:

Deidre said...

Yeah, unfortunately nothing works for skunk. And the worst part is that a year from now when it rains he'll smell like wet dog and skunk. le sigh.

Sunny said...

Ewww.... and I thought my dog Bingo bringing me half dead baby rats was disgusting. I grew up in the country and know all about skunks. Actually, the rats were disgusting, but at least there is not an lingering odor. Still can't open the outdoor kitchen cabinet door without calling him over first to check it out as that was were the nest was. Thank goodness we live on a barrier island and I don't think skunks cans swim over the intercoastal. You have my sympathy. Or whatever it is you're supposed to say somebody that has been through what you have been through. Blech...

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