Friday, July 02, 2004

Skunked 

Last night just before midnight like a switch the heavy air began to blow foul and musky through our third floor apartment windows. By the time thunder from a close and exceptionally electrical storm turned to driving rain and ozone-cleaned air, it was already too late.

We made a valiant adrenalin-fueled effort, but in the end, it didn't matter that we'd unsuccessfully held the yowling cat down in the tub, alternating tomato paste with a showerhead set on "massage," until giving up and locking him in the bathroom overnight. The oils had crept in on the fog, and infiltrated our carpet, our walls, our dirty clothes piles -- the very air.

Today we woke up to a cat thick with unwashed tomato paste in his fur, still skunky and trapped in the bathroom, and a living room carpet-and-ecology residual -- untracable, yet steeped strong enough to chase us out, nauseous and burning-lunged, to Brattleboro for the day. Though I've scrubbed my cuticles like a psychiatric inpatient, with Lava soap and lemon juice, for a cumulative total of half an hour so far today, through Spiderman 2, a walk to the farm stand, an outside grilled kebab supper, and a homecoming armed with Skunk-Off and citron scents, the tips of my fingers still reek of skunk, making me sick again at odd moments.

posted by boyhowdy | 9:08 PM |

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