The Skunk and The Dog

 

Sunday Morning

My mother-in-law sat on her living room couch looking grim as I walked in. I was still in my PJs. Next to her was my brother-in-law looking even more grim. I was living with my MIL for a few weeks while my husband finished his tour of duty with an army band in Stuttgart, Germany.

"Did you come home drunk last night?" she asked.

Saturday Night

I had eaten the traditional Saturday night home baked beans, hot dogs and brown bread in my childhood home. Not much had changed in the two-years I'd been overseas. There were still 38 pine trees surrounded by a semi circular driveway. The property still was surrounded by a Robert Frost stone wall. There were both back and side yards. A forest was behind the house.

Unlike my childhood there were no Saturday night card games, Monopoly or Parcheesi. Instead my mother and grandmother were listening to my tales of living in Germany about the Fashings and Fests where the band had played, of walking by the Altes and Neues Schlösser, of the mini refrigerator I was so grateful for in our second apartment. In the first I'd used the window sill and had only an electric coil to cook with. I told them how much I'd loved living in Germany, but how much I loved returning to university to resume the studies interrupted by my marriage.

My German-German Shepherd Kimm needed to go out, so I let her go alone. Being off leash was a novelty for her and she went bounding off. I knew she'd come back. 

She did. 

Obviously, she had met her first skunk.

I put her in the bathtub. We'd heard that tomato juice helped remove the stink. My folks had two large cans that I massaged into her fur followed by all the shampoo in the house. 

By the time she smelled better my clothes stank. Although my mother was much heavier than I was, she loaned me slacks and a top that were most welcome after a long shower. 

A former high school boy friend decided to drop in at that moment. He often visited my mother and grandmother and we had more memory sharing. He offered to drive me and Kimm to my MIL's, putting my stinking clothes in the trunk of his 1957 gold and white Dodge, the same car his father had loaned him when we went on dates my junior year.

I left my smelly clothes on my MIL's back step. I gave Kimm another bath using liquid dish soap and showered again, quietly to not disturb my MIL.

Sunday Morning 

"Of course I wasn't drunk," I told my MIL. "Why?"

"Your clothes were outside. You didn't strip and come in naked?" 

I told them the story. My BIL verified the truth of what I was saying after going outside to smell and dispose of the clothes.

"What will the neighbors say?" my BIL worried as I hooked Kimm up for her morning walk. 

Years later I learned the tomato juice doesn't as much remove the smell which is caused by sulfur- like chemicals but masks them. I would have been better using hydrogen peroxide or dish soap. 

Kimm never saw another skunk up close.