Let's Go Back To Sunday

I'm tired of all of the whiny-ass posts, so I thought I'd share a funny story.

Dig if you will, the picture....It's Saturday evening and I go to a friend's house to just "chill". We watch TV and just hang out. Sometime late Sunday morning, friend calls me and says, "You'll never guess what just happened". If you know friend, you know that nothing good can come of this statement. Friend likes to hunt birds. Apparently, an important part of hunting birds is a good bird dog. After lots of problems (that's a whole other story), he found a good dog that hunts really well and he likes her A LOT.

He had let this dog and her friend-dog out to run awhile and was heading outside to put them back up and begin mowing. When he stepped out the back door, he noticed that the dog had something in her mouth. She was bringing daddy a prize. Daddy's prize was a big ol skunk....yes, I said skunk. She passed her stunned daddy right by went through the back door of the house and promptly planted the skunk in the laundry room. It gets better...said skunk was still alive...and pissed. Skunk commenced to fighting with the dog and spraying everywhere in the laundry room. Thank goodness the door into the rest of the house was still closed. He couldn't very well go into the laundry room to get the little animals out so he called his neighbor for assistance. The neighbor (who you just have to know...he's a freakin riot) promptly came over to offer his help. The dog finally came out so the two of them just stood there looking at the back door (from a greater distance with every spray) waiting for the skunk to come out. The poor thing finally came out and scurried around to the front yard where friend and neighbor filled the little varmint with more lead than necessary just to try to rid themselves of some frustration.

This is the point in the story where he calls me. My brother used to trap animals for a living (yes...just like the hillbilly, mountain man he looks like), so I called him to see if he could offer any advice about what could be done about the EXTREMELY OVERWHELMING odor that the little critter had left behind. Mind you, the skunk had only sprayed the laundry room, but rest assured that the whole house as well as a good 2 acre radius was stinky. My brother said that vinegar had been the best thing that he'd found to cut the odor, but that nothing would kill it besides time and ventilation. So I'm off to the dollar store (where I spend a lot of my time as I'm a complete cheap-ass). I purchase 10 jugs of vinegar and a fan to set in the doorway of the laundry room. When I drive up at the scene of the incident, there stands my friend in one of those plastic, white suits with the hood...the kind like mold remediation crews wear....and a respirator mask. I'm not kidding. I laughed so hard I almost peed. He then grabs a spray bottle of "garbage odor eliminator" and a couple bottles of vinegar and heads for the back door. At this point, neighbor-guy, who'd been out ho-ing around all night the night before announces that it's time for him to have a beer.

The vinegar really did more good than I thought it would. At this point, all the doors and windows of the house are open for the ventilation process to begin. We'd gone in to pour more vinegar on the floor in the house and I went to check the bedrooms and bathroom in that part of the house. Friend proclaims that the bedroom should be just fine as he closed the door promptly when he'd been able to enter the house. I opened the bedroom door and quickly realized that he was dreadfully wrong. He brought in vinegar and started pouring it on the carpet in the bedroom and we all went outside to breath for a moment.

As we're sitting outside, neighbor-guy proclaims that it might be a good idea to go get the clothes out of the closet in the bedroom and hang them up somewhere outside so that the odor doesn't penetrate the clothing. The two of them start into the bedroom and I'm lagging behind trying to be polite and put out my cigarette in an ashtray instead of throwing it on the ground. As I step into the front door and they round the corner into the bedroom it hits me...at this point we have to go back to Saturday night. I forgot to mention earlier that I didn't go home til Sunday morning. We all "chill" in our own unique way, right? There had been a "small appliance" involved in our chilling. Surely he'd put it up and not left it out. Neighbor guy is a riot and would have a hay-day with that little apparatus. I went into the bedroom. They are both standing there with the closet door open, smelling the clothes and telling me that they don't smell. I look on the toddler bed where the grand baby sleeps when she visits and there it is...a big purple "small appliance". First of all, how effed up is it that it's on the baby's bed. I promptly announce that the clothes smell just fine and that we should all get back outside. They are wandering about aimlessly while I'm freakin out. After what seemed like hours, friend finally looked down and saw it. Then he looked at me and my beet red face and started to try to get neighbor out. I got neighbor's attention while friend threw a towel over "it". I was dying an knew that neighbor had seen it, but was just being nice as I was red in the face and sweating like a ho-in-church.

After we all got back outside, neighbor started calling a restoration and clean up company that he deals with in his business and I decided that it was time to go home...just as soon as I threatened friend with his life if he didn't put that damned thing up before the clean up crew got there.

All ended up well...the laundry room still stinks to high Heaven, but the rest of the house is OK. And I have taken over the role of "keeper of the appliance". Obviously, I can't trust other people to not leave it laying around for all the world to see.