oh, goody.

I like my house. It's beautiful, and the yard is even prettier. Mama and Daddy have spent countless hours working to make our home what it is, and the result is amazing, in my opinion.

But.

(Bet you didn't see that "but" coming, did you?)

There's a problem with having such a nice yard and pleasant house. Other things take a liking to them. Other things, as in, animals. Not welcome animals. There was the yellow cat Darrin paralyzed with the bb gun, there was the hound dog that kept getting into our trash, there was the possum that got fried in the wires behind the meat freezer in the shop and stunk up the entire building before we discovered him, and various and sundry other critters along the way. But those were small and insignificant compared to who has fallen in love with our place now.

A large, filthy, nasty, smelly, smelly, smelly, skunk.

I don't like snakes. At all. I don't like pigs. At all. I don't like spiders. At all. But I like all of them put together better than a skunk. You can kill snakes and spiders, and you can choose not to have pigs. But skunks don't wait for an engraved invitation; they just move into the neighborhood like they own the place, and if you kill skunks you smell indescribably horrible for a really, really long time, and your house and yard and pets smell worse. For even longer. (Since you can't wash your house, yard, and pets in tomato juice and burn their in-contact-with-skunk clothes.)

Thanks to this delightful newcomer, our house now has a pleasing scent which has spread to every room, every corner, ever so faintly in some places, then blast-your-nose-out strong in others.

Anyone want to come and have a sleep-over?

Come on, you know you do.

And you'll go home smelling just wonderful. Everyone will be dying to know where you found that awesome new perfume. So they can avoid that store like the plague.