SKUNK

I'm in bed late last night way after midnight (more like 3:00 a.m.) reading. I'm comfortably propped up with four pillows (I like leverage) and I'm (almost) in a state of complete relaxation.

This is extremely rare. Getting me to the point of complete relaxation usually requires generous doses of Prozac, a fifth or two of straight whiskey, and/or electric shock therapy.
But that's beside the point.

Anyway, I have the window wide open so I can hear the nearby owls and see an occasional lightning bug (firefly) drifting by. I'm completely absorbed.

Suddenly-
and I mean suddenly -
the entire room is filled (and I mean  completely filled) with the strong stench of a skunk. I'm not talking drifting aroma. I'm talking complete alarming permeation.

The stench is so strong that I initially think the skunk must be in my bedroom.
This scenario isn't as implausible as it seems. In the past I've already had two 'possums and one racoon in the house. And, no - I am not kidding.

I cautiously check the bedroom and then the entire house. To my relief, I only find the three cats.

I can only assume that the skunk must have been directly under my bedroom window.
I've dealt with skunks before. Hell, I've even been in relationships with a few (but that's another story for another time).
I've never, however, encountered a skunk this incredibly smelly. It wasn't merely a skunk stench. It was a supercalifragilisticexpialidocious skunk stench.

I just threw that in to impress you. The things I've retained from seeing  Mary Poppins in my impressionable youth are astounding.

Anyway, I tried closing the window, but that only trapped the stench in the house. So I eventually opened the window again and endured the stench until long (longlonglong) after dawn.

So that's it, Jon???

Yes. I'll admit it's a crappy story. But I tell it with flair and an uncanny sense of style.

While I'm on the subject of skunks, I'll tell another skunk story.

Once, long ago, my parents were on vacation traveling through Oklahoma late at night (I wasn't with them). It was a dark highway and my father hit a skunk.

They said the stench was so bad that they stopped at the nearest car wash and washed the car several times - but it did nothing to alleviate the smell.

(I'm suddenly thinking of that episode of Seinfeld, when Jerry's car had B.O)

Anyway, when my parents finally got home the car still smelled so bad that they didn't dare put it in the garage. They washed it several more times and used every possible ploy to get rid of the smell but nothing worked.

I can attest to the fact that the car maintained the essence of skunk for several months before it finally wore off.

The End.