In loving memory of our good friend, Pat Dinkins, Nov. 11, 1939 to Jan. 31, 2026
Sometimes, when you are a little over a month away from giving birth, you wake up in the night, unable to sleep. You get up, let the dogs out, get a drink of water, let the dogs in, and climb back into bed. When you are lucky, you fall asleep again.
Sometimes this happens, and instead of falling asleep, you go back to bed, and you are absolutely convinced you smell something disgusting. You wonder, is it possible that one of the dogs scared a skunk when you let them out? And perhaps that said skunk sprayed under a window, and that smell is now seeping through the bedroom window? Or, that the stench is clinging to the dogs snoozing in the next room, then creeping under the door like malodorous tendrils of smoke?
You go out to the living room to sniff the dogs. Nope, everyone smells fine. You go back to bed, now wondering if this is a new phase of pregnancy — the “imagining-terrible-smells” phase. Is it possible you are experiencing some kind of hormone-induced smell hallucination? Does this mean five more weeks of imagining the stink of skunk everywhere you go?
Suddenly, there is a muffled clatter. The sound of metal hitting cement. It is coming from just below the floor under the bed. You get back up. The dogs are still sleeping peacefully; meanwhile, the stench is now pulsating through the living room. You put your ear to the basement door, but all you hear is the sound of a dog softly snoring in the other room.
But back in bed, eyes closed, nose under blankets, you hear, once again, an unmistakable racket coming from below. There is definitely something in the basement. Minutes tick by as you puzzle out the facts.
FACT 1: There is a critter of some kind knocking around in the basement. FACT 2: The smell of skunk is slowly filling the first floor of your home. Inevitable Conclusion: There is a skunk in your basement.
That’s when you remember the ground-level window that was supposed to be replaced last fall, but an early freeze meant it couldn’t be dug out before winter. The old window was duct-taped shut, but perhaps the humidity of the recent warm, rainy weather loosened the duct tape, leaving a skunk-sized opening? As if to confirm your suspicions, you hear yet another clatter from below.
It is still dark out. There is nothing that can be done now but face the new reality — when your husband finally wakes, you both will go down to the basement and try to catch the skunk, and inevitably the skunk will spray you, and everything else before you are successful. You’ll splash tomato juice on the walls, and it will run down like blood in a horror movie, but it still won’t eliminate the toxic aura of skunk.
Perhaps you should let the skunk stay, and just start building a new house.
At the first light of dawn, you touch your husband’s shoulder. “Honey, are you awake?” You ask.
“Yes,” he replies, cracking open one eye.
“I have some bad news. There is a skunk in the basement.”
The eye opens a little wider, the other stays shut, then he goes to check, even though he doesn’t believe you.
“Well,” he says when he returns. “There is a skunk in the basement.”
There is really no way for this story to end well, and yet, it does. A quick call is made to a good friend and retired state trapper. He tells you to cut a small hole in a cardboard box. He is at your house a few minutes later, then calmly wrangles the skunk into the aforementioned box, then drives away with a friendly wave, the box and skunk in the back of his pickup.
Within a few hours, the smell has dissipated to almost nothing, and you are left shaking your head and giving thanks for miracles in the form of generous, skunk-savvy friends.
