Late last night I was playing my guitar. I was just sitting there in my room: playing, relaxing, breathing; and then suddenly: playing, gagging, crying.
I had taken a deep breath of skunk. A recently discharged skunk must have just walked under my front window.
“GARY OH MY GOD GARY COME IN HERE AND SMELL THIS. GARY! … GARY?”
I heard the back door slam and Gary came in.
“Gary! We’ve been skunked again!”
“I know,” he called out happily, “It was so cute!”
Our conversation after that was a call and answer of me wailing “Can’t you smell that?” and Gary saying either A) “That nutty aroma? I’m sure it will waft away” or B) “It was so cute! You should have seen it!”
Eventually the smell dissipated enough for me to have a conversation. Here’s what happened.
1) Gary was taking some bags of peanuts to the backyard. He had on his nerdy headlamp so he wouldn’t disturb the animals with the porch light. He stepped on to the porch.
2) There was a skunk on the porch. It immediately went in to skunk DEFCON 5: Stomping, in which the skunk stomps its front feet as a warning.
3) Gary, seduced by the cuteness of the skunk, whispered, “Oh, you’re so beautiful! Look at you!” He whispered so as not to “alarm the skunk.”
4) The skunk, alarmed, went to DEFCON 4: Scooting Backward while stomping. In retrospect, Gary thinks that he should have turned his headlamp off, because the skunk might have been blinded by the light and not have recognized him. Gary was still hypnotized by the cuteness and was cooing baby talk.
5) The skunk went to DEFCON 3: Raised Tail, and then, according to Gary, skipped DEFCON 2 entirely (which is Whipping Around to Show the Glands). So, instead of aiming his rear at Gary, the skunk had his butt pointed away from Gary when he went to DEFCON 1.
6) Gary claims the skunk did not emit a full spray. “He was just young and he got too excited. It was just a little premature skunk poot.”
After Gary finished describing it from his point of view, I was more sympathetic. The baby skunks are pretty cute, and when they stomp and scoot, it’s hard to look away from the skunk siren song.
How cute are they? Here’s a video of a stomp and a scoot when a baby and a mom take on a raccoon that is no smarter than Gary.
3 responses to “Skunk Encounters Of the Third Kind”
I did not know that skunks stomped before spraying – I assume if adequately startled they skip that step?
And hooray for Gary not being directly in the line of fire! (if he had been, do you have some sort of shed or tent he could live in for a… while…?)
But: see a skunk, run away, live to not-stink another day…
Gary has an amusing view of skunks. And, right about the cuteness of a skunk communicating its alarm. One early morning, I surprised (it was mutual) a mother and two babies and got to observe the stomp. I very quietly backed away.
KC – Steps vary between skunk breeds. We have no spotted skunks, those skunks walk on their hands right before the big spray. And it takes a skunk a month to store up more stink, so they only really use it if all the warning have been ignored. Lucky for Gary it was a baby skunk and was not fully armed yet.Arlene – Gary realized that when he is threatened by wild animals, like water buffalo, his reaction is to compliment them. Seehttps://www.mocklog.com/queen_mediocretia/2015/09/bookends.html