Since the
windows are below ground level, the window wells are semi circle holes
with an aluminum wall that are made next to the house so that dirt doesn't
come pouring in when I open the window.
One
of the problems I've discovered about window wells is that they're pretty
much on borrowed time before they fill up with “stuff”. I've noticed that
after mowing the lawn, there are grass clippings in the window wells and
inevitably, this leads to grass. Which in itself is pretty surprising
because it doesn't have that effect on the rest of the lawn. I can't actually
grow any grass on my lawn, but I've got a freaking tropical rain forest
in the window wells. You see, it's impossible to MOW in the window well
because they're just too small. They're about a foot from the window and
about 3 feet down. Needless to say the guy that came up with this idea
is on my list.
The other
problem with window wells is that if a skunk were to fall into a window
well at say, two in the morning, he'd have a hard time getting
out.
“Interesting
thing about skunks is that I had no idea they made noise.”
I also had
no idea that if they WERE to be noise making animals, how to identify
a "skunk trapped in a window well with the window wide open and only a
fantasy for a screen" noise.
I had a
shade over the window. Because there's just something spooky about
basement windows. Since I was a child, I was always freaked out by the
idea of looking out a window in the dead of night and suddenly realizing
that there was a monster on the other side of the glass looking in!
I've been preparing for this moment my entire life so when I heard the
strange noise of course I went totally blank and like a robot I lifted
the shade that was covering the window that was inches above my head.
Needless
to say the skunk had seen the same movies I had, and was JUST as freaked
to see MY face suddenly appear within 4 inches of his own as I
was. But I couldn't quite make him out. Keep in mind, he is above me and
on the other side of the screen, in the dark. And he is black. And I am
not expecting to see anything at all directly above my head
and in front of my face. If a news crew were to have interviewed me
at that moment, I would have said just about anything OTHER than a skunk
was staring at me. I would have been LESS surprised if that had been Publishers
Clearing House than a skunk. Also, keep in mind that I and probably
most of you, have a BRAIN ICON of Pepe' la Pew for a skunk / image relationship.
So it was
without sound judgment that I reached for the window and closed it while
suddenly realizing the eyes of the skunk as he looked in disbelief at
me practically yelling with those eyes...“HEY YOU MORON! ARE YOU REACHING
FOR ME?! I'M A SKUNK! WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?!!”
The skunk,
in shock over my stupidity, did nothing but stare in disbelief. It was
at this very instant when I realized that this was a skunk.
“This was
about the same time I could feel the hair FALL from my chest as my skin
tried to leave my body.”
I continued
in my robotic action closing the window, and then I lowered the shade
again. Now, in a zombie state, I got a flashlight and I went upstairs
to the kitchen...where I opened the sliding glass door to the backyard
and peered into the hole, from a distance, at A SKUNK! With awe I blinded
the skunk with my flashlight as I studied it, having never seen a skunk,
and I got closer. I got closer because there was something in my head
that said that this must not truly be a skunk because if it were, I would
have been hating life about 3 minutes ago. Then I heard a noise, a noise
that startled both me and the skunk study. But this time, I knew this
noise. This was UNHAPPY SKUNK SQUEAK and this came from the
darkness in the opposite direction. Low and behold not only was
there a skunk getting more and more unhappy about being in my window well,
but her husband was right next to me in the pitch blackness of my backyard
where the outside light had been burned out for months.
I slowly
backed up into the house.
I called
the police.
Half expecting
the lines to be dead and preparing to click wildly on the switch-hook
and yell “OPERATOR!! OPERATOR!!” I dialed 911.
Now I imagine
the folks at 911 have heard just about everything, so now that things
have calmed down, I sorta wonder why they were so surprised to hear that
there were “HUNDREDS OF SKUNKS SURROUNDING MY HOUSE!” And you would
have thought that they would have sent a squad car over just to see
the sight if nothing else. But they refused. Instead they had a police
woman WALK me through skunk political correctness over the
PHONE! I insisted that there must be some government agency that I paid
taxes to that did this sort of work, but she assured me that by the time
they had gotten there...the skunk was probably going to be “out of
patience”. She also told me that perhaps this was the mother skunk
and these were the children. (sounds remarkably like Newt and the rest
of congress here doesn't it?)
She informed
me that I had nothing to worry about because before a skunk sprays you,
he STOMPS HIS FEET several times. Like this is some sort of SKUNK PHYSICS.
Of course for some reason this was reassuring to me, even though it made
no sense what-so-ever. Because that's the psychology at work here. The
fact is, even if the skunk is visibly throwing a tantrum, he's stomping
on GRASS!! How am I supposed to hear THIS? And just how many times could
this have been studied? I imagine the researcher on that project
was probably hearing his OWN feet stomping as he ran away.
The police
woman instructed me to put a board in the hole with the skunk so that
the skunk can crawl out. Now, this makes about as much sense as approaching
a dog with a rolled up newspaper so he can READ. How is approaching
a wild animal with a 2 x 4 supposed to reassure it and its friends that
I'm there to be neighborly?
Anyway,
by the time I located a board long enough that I could reach the
hole from New Hampshire, the skunk was gone without a trace. I
don't know how it got out, but probably the other skunk reached in and
yelled, “QUICK, hand me your paw before that idiot realizes that
that was ME on the phone!”
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