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St. John the Snorer came into my room around 1 am last night, so I got to wake up to that sickening Something Is Bad-Wrong feeling. My alarm is set for 4:30 am, so John would never, ever wake me up on a weeknight unless it was important, because he respects sleep. Unlike me. And other people with variations of my name. "Matty," for instance. Just throwing that out there as an example; I have no one specific in mind.
So, yeah. John was in my room, and I woke up with a squirt of adrenaline. "What's wrong, sweetie?"
"I need your help. Do you smell that?" he asked, which is funny to me because of John's nose. When it comes to foul odors, John's nose is bionic. It's unbelievably sensitive. But that's the thing; he can't smell anything else. Only bad stuff. He has no idea what a "pleasant" odor is. I could be baking cinnamon rolls, and crush a strawberry under his nose, and he'd never know it if I didn't take his blindfold off, which I never do when we're at home.
"Do you smell that?" goes the punchline, but in this case I actually smelled something. I flipped through my Odor-Rolodex— slowly, because adrenaline or no, I was still groggy— until I finally arrived at...
"Skunk. It's a skunk, sweetie," I said.
"Well, it's really strong out here," he said, and I immediately drew a conclusion. Yoshi, our dumb, sweet lab, had finally tangled with his first skunk. Great. I got up and moved toward the bedroom door.
John said, "I wasn't sure if it was a skunk or not because it... " but I couldn't hear the rest of what he said, because he opened the door and the fucking house was on fire.
Alarm! Alarm! Consternation! Run! Flee! I had never been in a housefire before. It wakes you up. My immediate impulse was to grab that day's denim shorts, a t-shirt, and race out onto the backyard lawn, because my brain was screaming at me to get the fuck out. How could John not see that his fucking house was fucking ablaze?
However— and this is queer for a housefire— there was no smoke. There was also no fire. Which sort of puts a damper on one's whole "being in a housefire" mood. All there was, was this overwhelming, intense smell.
We started searching immediately. We turned off the computers, and smelled the wiring. Nothing. Killed the hall fan, and smelled it. Nothing. Garage, nothing specific. Kitchen, same thing. Couldn't find it in the living room. Attic, nothing. Outside, nothing. Crawlspace, nothing. It was nowhere, and yet it was everywhere. We were inside it, like an expanding ball of evil, cooling, background radiation.
Yoshi wouldn't come near us, which let us know that he knew that he had done something bad. He slunk, ears back, and hid under my computer table, which is what he does when he can't figure out which one of us is good cop, and which one is bad cop. I had to call to him sweetly several times before he came over to us.
Nothing. It wasn't on him. But he knew he had done something wrong, and like all other dogs, he totally narced himself out. Which is great. But unhelpful in this case.
It took us another half hour of sniffing and searching and ruling out possibilities before we worked out what must have happened. We leave the back door slightly open, in case Yoshi wants to go outside, or in case Richard wants to deposit any unwanted electronic devices or pets of his own. A skunk must have wandered in, bumbled into the living room, and gotten cornered by the dog. Yoshi, being a good dog, didn't bark, because That Would Be Bad. So he just engaged his visitor in "play" until it blasted the couch, or the coffee table, or whatever dark shape it saw fit to let have it, and then bailed.
I cannot emphasize this enough: There is nothing in this world that will prepare you for the smell of skunk juice in your living room. "Foul Stench" doesn't approach descriptive enough. "Corpse-like Rancidity" lives down the street from it. We couldn't bring ourselves to go back to bed for a while, it was so bad. I thought the house was on fire, it was so bad.
It still is. It fills my nostrils. Even at work this morning, I could smell nothing else. I had to check with my coworkers to make sure that I didn't reek, because I couldn't tell anymore. Rain, breakfast, smoke, exhaust fumes... all of it smells the same.
How the hell can this be biological?
So, yeah. John was in my room, and I woke up with a squirt of adrenaline. "What's wrong, sweetie?"
"I need your help. Do you smell that?" he asked, which is funny to me because of John's nose. When it comes to foul odors, John's nose is bionic. It's unbelievably sensitive. But that's the thing; he can't smell anything else. Only bad stuff. He has no idea what a "pleasant" odor is. I could be baking cinnamon rolls, and crush a strawberry under his nose, and he'd never know it if I didn't take his blindfold off, which I never do when we're at home.
"Do you smell that?" goes the punchline, but in this case I actually smelled something. I flipped through my Odor-Rolodex— slowly, because adrenaline or no, I was still groggy— until I finally arrived at...
"Skunk. It's a skunk, sweetie," I said.
"Well, it's really strong out here," he said, and I immediately drew a conclusion. Yoshi, our dumb, sweet lab, had finally tangled with his first skunk. Great. I got up and moved toward the bedroom door.
John said, "I wasn't sure if it was a skunk or not because it... " but I couldn't hear the rest of what he said, because he opened the door and the fucking house was on fire.
Alarm! Alarm! Consternation! Run! Flee! I had never been in a housefire before. It wakes you up. My immediate impulse was to grab that day's denim shorts, a t-shirt, and race out onto the backyard lawn, because my brain was screaming at me to get the fuck out. How could John not see that his fucking house was fucking ablaze?
However— and this is queer for a housefire— there was no smoke. There was also no fire. Which sort of puts a damper on one's whole "being in a housefire" mood. All there was, was this overwhelming, intense smell.
We started searching immediately. We turned off the computers, and smelled the wiring. Nothing. Killed the hall fan, and smelled it. Nothing. Garage, nothing specific. Kitchen, same thing. Couldn't find it in the living room. Attic, nothing. Outside, nothing. Crawlspace, nothing. It was nowhere, and yet it was everywhere. We were inside it, like an expanding ball of evil, cooling, background radiation.
Yoshi wouldn't come near us, which let us know that he knew that he had done something bad. He slunk, ears back, and hid under my computer table, which is what he does when he can't figure out which one of us is good cop, and which one is bad cop. I had to call to him sweetly several times before he came over to us.
Nothing. It wasn't on him. But he knew he had done something wrong, and like all other dogs, he totally narced himself out. Which is great. But unhelpful in this case.
It took us another half hour of sniffing and searching and ruling out possibilities before we worked out what must have happened. We leave the back door slightly open, in case Yoshi wants to go outside, or in case Richard wants to deposit any unwanted electronic devices or pets of his own. A skunk must have wandered in, bumbled into the living room, and gotten cornered by the dog. Yoshi, being a good dog, didn't bark, because That Would Be Bad. So he just engaged his visitor in "play" until it blasted the couch, or the coffee table, or whatever dark shape it saw fit to let have it, and then bailed.
I cannot emphasize this enough: There is nothing in this world that will prepare you for the smell of skunk juice in your living room. "Foul Stench" doesn't approach descriptive enough. "Corpse-like Rancidity" lives down the street from it. We couldn't bring ourselves to go back to bed for a while, it was so bad. I thought the house was on fire, it was so bad.
It still is. It fills my nostrils. Even at work this morning, I could smell nothing else. I had to check with my coworkers to make sure that I didn't reek, because I couldn't tell anymore. Rain, breakfast, smoke, exhaust fumes... all of it smells the same.
How the hell can this be biological?
