Skunked

Last night, Garbanzo ran outside around our bedtime. We didn't worry about it too much, as he'll come meowing to the door in a few minutes to be let back in. This time, he didn't.

Around midnight, I woke up and saw him at the door, so I let him in. I vaguely noticed a smell, but I let him in. Then the smell hit me, and I realized we had a skunk problem on our hands. I corralled Garbanzo to the laundry room, to minimize contamination and come up with a plan. I noticed he was wet when I pet him, so I grabbed some paper towels to squeegee him off.

Then the smell kept getting worse. I moved him out to the garage. Very quickly, the garage became foul. R suggested that he needed to get outside ASAP, but he was hiding under the van. I opened the side door, and open the garage opener to scare him out and to get some fresh air in there. He ran for it.

I did some other tidying up, left the garage door open, and went back to bed soon enough. Clearly, this was not a problem I could deal well with in the middle of the night.

For the rest of the night, he sat outside our bedroom and howled. And stank.

We spent this morning trying to eradicate the smell from the house. Amazing stuff, skunk spray. A little goes a long way. We are making good progress, but it still persists around the house. From his short time in the garage, both of our sealed cars became rank.

R found the Mythbusters' approved anti-stink solution, and Garbanzo was freaked out enough to let her clean him without much complaint. He smells much better, but I think he got hit in the face, and it was hard to wash there.