902 Skunks

After the previous post, I was compelled to go read up on skunks. Now I want one as a pet.

When I was in high school and living on the air force base on the mountain, there was a wild skunk living under one of the barracks. The airmen made friends with it, and it had pretty much free run of the base.

One day the APs at the gate called our house to warn me that they had seen the skunk chasing my cat Smokey down the road. Before the call was over, though, they reported that "now Smokey is chasing the skunk". Whoops, now the skunk is chasing Smokey again. The two of them chased each other back and forth, playing. They got to be good friends. They even invited each other into their homes. My mother didn't much care for that.

Skunk smell close up might be pretty bad, I guess. I don't know because I've never smelled it close up. With all the animals I've had, and all the living in skunk-owned woods, all the skunks trekking across my lawn, and petting the "wild" skunk on the base, I've never had anything sprayed.

I love the far-off smell of skunk-spray on the breeze. Not as in "it's not so bad" - I actually like it. I take little slow sniffs and it makes a good feeling in my brain, a tingly feeling in my chest.

The skunks around here are prettier than the pictures of striped skunks to be found online. Ordinary striped skunks have the white cap and then a stripe down either side of their body, and a little white on the tail. Most of the skunks I've seen around here, the space between the stripes is filled in white so that they are solid white on their backs, and the tops of their tails are completely white. Their black is just on their underneath parts. Their fur is long and fluffy. Very pretty.

They waddle, and poke their noses into everything.

I'll bet a skunk in the house (even a descented one) could be as much of a burglar-deterrent as a dog. Probably harder to travel with or board, though.