Absolutely Preposterous

I can't imagine a more preposterous situation than this one.

I woke up a little before 4:00 and heard rustling on the bedroom floor. It's not carpeted, and I heard occasional encounters with one of the magazines beside my bed. I also heard footsteps and rustling of various sorts. That is one noisy mouse. I hope it's not a rat. Haven't ever seen one of those inside the house since that confused one ten years ago. "Get out of here," I said out loud when I heard the noise too close to me.

Hiromi woke up then. "What's going on?'

"I'm hearing a really noisy mouse, and I'm afraid it's going to climb up onto the bed, so I tried to scare it."

Then I heard a mouse trap snap in the pantry. Good. That mouse is caught, and I can go back to sleep. It was not to be. I soon heard the rustling again right beside my side of the bed, as noisy as ever.

I reached up and turned on my trusty bedside pharmacy light, with its dome shade directing the light to the floor. I was hoping to scare that mouse right out of the bedroom. The light revealed the furry visitor in full glory: a full-grown skunk. It turned and I saw its long bushy tail disappear under the bed.

"Hiromi, there's a skunk in our bedroom," I said quietly.

"What?"

"There's a skunk in here."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes. I saw it. It's under the bed."

"How did it get in here? I'm going to get my boots."

After he left, I wasn't sure what to do, but I was pretty sure I didn't want to stay in the bedroom. I was also pretty sure I didn't want to do anything to scare that skunk enough to make it spray. In retrospect, trying earlier to scare that mouse into silence didn't look so smart. And shining a light directly onto it to try to intimidate it.

When I heard it behind the wicker shelf angled across the inner corner of the bedroom, I had a clear path to the hall and got up and exited the bedroom. I closed the door after me.

Hiromi was dressed by now (in more than boots, fortunately), had collected his mind a bit and said, "Can you get your dresses out of the doorway, so I can close the other door?" (There's a second door to the bedroom that we never use. It's usually open to the study, and I often hang dresses in the doorway to dry.) Before I could do that, Hiromi went back into the bedroom himself and got the dresses. He also had the presence of mind to make sure the closet doors were closed. I closed the second door to the bedroom from the study as soon as the dresses were gone. At least now the skunk wouldn't go wandering elsewhere in the house. But having it locked in the bedroom didn't seem like a great idea either.

Hiromi said, "I'm going to get the live trap. I don't know what I'm going to do with it though."

He came back soon and said he had cleaned up the trap. ????? "Do I smell skunk? he asked. "Yeah. I smell skunk. Why don't you look on the internet to see if you can find out what to do?"

"I did that when Wes and Natasha had the skunk under their house, and I didn't find much of anything. I think what we really ought to do is pray about it."

"OK, let's pray." So we did, together, out loud, holding hands. I prayed especially that we could take care of the problem without that skunk spraying inside the house.

"Can't we just try to guide it out?" I asked, when the prayer was finished.

"That's a good idea. What can we use?"

"Do we have big pieces of cardboard, or wood?" Hiromi disappeared to the shed to look for something. While he was gone, I looked on the internet.

He returned with a six-foot folding table we used at farmer's market. I kept reading. Later he came back with about a half sheet of plywood. Our plan was to guide it into the hall, down the three steps to the landing that has a door into the garage. And out the door, obviously.

The plywood blocked off the opening from the landing to the basement. The six-foot table, on its side, and hinged in the middle, was snugged up next to the bedroom doorway at one end, and from there opened into an obtuse angle facing the short stairway.

"They love sardines, and they prefer darkness to light," I told Hiromi, reporting from my internet search. I remembered the three little sardine cans that had survived Hiromi's pantry purge last week, and was thankful I had exited the bedroom with the light on.

"I saved them for this," Hiromi said implausibly, hurrying to open a sardine can.

I tore a paper plate into small pieces, and we put a tiny bit of sardines on each piece. No need to let that skunk stay long enough to eat his fill, after all. Hiromi put several sardine-anointed paper plate bits right outside the bedroom door in the hall, and a few more all the way to the garage door, which he had propped open. Then he went through the garage toward the live trap outdoors (The garage has a dirt floor and one open side.) dropping bits of sardine oil as he went.

After we were all set, we turned off all the lights elsewhere in the house and Hiromi opened the bedroom door, just long enough to see the skunk for the first time--in front of the closet doors, with its tail high. Not a good sign. He went to wake Grant, while I stood watch. The light from the open bedroom door and a small night light in the hall gave a little light. I stood there with a camera, and realized I didn't even know enough to turn the thing on. I had gotten it so that Hiromi could take a picture of it in the hallway. But now he was off in Grant's room. I gave up on getting a picture. Maybe the flash would have triggered the spray mechanism anyway. Wouldn't want to do that.

Very soon, the skunk came shuffling out of the bedroom into the hall, nosing at the sardine bits. Then it proceeded toward the stairs, and hesitated a bit, going back and forth at the head of the stairs several times. I observed that it took up most of the width of the hall with its outstretched tail when it crossed from one side to the other. I saw it start down the stairs and quickly went to report to Grant and Hiromi. Grant was getting dressed, and he soon followed Hiromi outside with a gun.

Directly, I heard one shotgun blast outdoors, and Hiromi and Grant came back inside.

"Did you get it?"

"Yeah."

"Where?"

"Along the fenceline by the cedar trees north of the house."

Relief. Far enough away from the house to keep the odors at bay, with a south wind to carry away whatever disagreeable scent might have been released.

Hiromi carried the table and the plywood back to the shed. Grant went back to bed, and I sat down at the computer.

"Put it on your blog," Hiromi said when he got back. Too late.

"I've already started. Wouldn't want to let a story like that go to waste."

***********************

We have no idea how the skunk got inside. Several weeks ago Grant went around with a can of expandable foam insulation and sealed up several mouse-sized holes, and none of us knew then or knows now of any place bigger than those small half-inch-pipe-sized holes. I read that they can squeeze through a space as small as four inches across, so our best guess is that sometime the garage door may have stayed open for a bit (It has to be pulled or pushed to latch right.) and the skunk wandered in. But when? No idea. Maybe the furnace guy left the door open last week and the skunk came in and hid out in the basement in the interim. Whatever.

We're thanking the Lord for as good-as-possible an ending to this story. I'm guessing anyone coming into the house from outdoors might be able to smell a faint animal smell, but I can't smell it

If anyone needs further evidence, hold your nose, and check out the carcass near the big cedar tree north of the house.

Also, if anyone needs evidence that God answers prayer, I dare you to get close to me today and see if you can smell skunk on my clothes. For that answered prayer we can all give thanks.