Stank You Smelly Much

So when we moved into this house, we knew there were some things we would want to change. The previous owners did a fine job taking care of the place, but it definitely needs a bit of that home improvement action that's so politely referred to as updating. You know, like:

"Oh, it's in great shape, it just needs a bit of updating."

"The house is from 1908, but it's been completely updated."

"Ripping out that green shag carpeting will go a long way towards updating this place."

Yay for HGTV. One of the updating projects we knew we were going to do at some point was the floors. Most of the house has rather dingy carpet that's long since done its duty and needs to be retired. So we added floors to the list, content that we would return to it soon enough.

Which brings us to last Friday night. We had just finished season 1 of "The Wire", and were on our way to bed, pausing only long enough to let the dog out to relieve himself. At one point, I looked outside to see him squirming around in the grass, and smiled at the sight of it.

"Silly dog."

Oh, if only I'd known. A few minutes later, I opened the door to let him in, and was immediately assaulted by the smell of burning tires. Elliott ran inside and proceeded to do his squirming routine all over the carpet. I went upstairs where Ashley was brushing her teeth.

"Do you smell that?"

I had barely gotten the question out when she pinpointed the odor's source: "SKUNK!"

The family dog had been sprayed.

Neither Ash nor myself had ever dealt with a skunk spraying before, so we had to consult the 'webs. We found a lot of ideas and surefire cures, but unfortunately, they all involved stuff that we didn't have on hand. We finally ran across one post by someone claiming to have limited success with dishwashing liquid. So at 11:00 at night, I found myself kneeling next to the tub bathing a rather stinky, rather confused, and very unhappy dog in dish soap. I could almost hear his voice of protest. It sounded just like Bobcat Goldthwaite.

"That cat-looking thing sprayed its yuckies all over me for absolutely NO REASON, I was just trying to say hello, ya know? And now you people are giving me a bath? What gives man?"

I bathed him 3 times before it was all said and done, and his resistance grew with each lather-rinse-repeat. He still stank enough that we made him spend the night in the garage.

Of course, we still had the smell in the house to deal with. The dog had effectively rubbed skunk scent into the living room carpet, the very carpet we were planning to tear out at some point. It seems Some Point had arrived. We yanked up the carpet and hauled it outside. I made it to bed by about 1:30 after pulling up enough of the carpet tack to be reasonably safe, leaving the rest for the next day.

Saturday was supposed to be test-drive/buy car day for my wife, which meant she was going to get a pretty kickass Mommy's Day present. Instead, we spent the day purchasing new flooring, which is now sitting in its unopened packaging, waiting to be laid down very soon. We also bought some skunk smell remover at the pet store.

Now it just remains to be seen whether or not ours is the type of dog that learns his lesson on these things. Based on past experience, I'm not tossing out the Skunk-B-Gone anytime soon.

So how was your weekend?