The Old Man, His Wife and the Skunk

Bob, when he joined the canvass on Thursday night, did not smell bad. So, when he offered to give me a ride home, I had nothing to tell me that there was anything amiss. 

Tired after two hours of climbing front steps and knocking on doors, I said yes. 

On the way to the car, Bob talked about his skull collection. He explained that in his role as the executive director of the Escarpment Biosphere Conservancy he takes the collection to rural fairs and uses it as a conversation starter. "Kids come running over to the table, and then I get to talk with their parents. We have over 200 properties under the land trust now."

I assumed Bob wasn't talking about human skulls.  

"Can you smell the skunk?" Bob asked when I opened the car door. Trying to be polite because he was giving me a ride, I said, "yes, but it's not too bad." 

He told me that he needed a skunk skull for his collection because he'd been told that what he thought was a skunk was actually a cat's skull. 

Then Bob was in the market for a dead skunk. Soon enough, he found one, lying in the middle of the road.

He'd pulled over, retrieved the flattened skunk, and put it in his car. The dead skunk is now both hanging in a tree in his back yard and, essentially, still in his car. "My wife's not very happy with me," said Bob. 

To help him with that, I offered him the unsolicited advice that a product call Bad Air Sponge would likely remove the stench from his vehicle.

I got to test my advice that same night. When I got home, standing in the front hall, I told Bruce the story of the old man and the skunk and he said, standing three metres away from me, "that explains the way you smell."

I put my shirt, my pants, my jacket and my knapsack in a small closet with an air sponge. Two days later, they were good as new. 

For the sake of his marriage, I hope Bob gives it a try.

Thanks for reading!

Next week, dispatches from Pittsburgh!

Karen

Also famous for mistaking cats for skunks.