Did you ever have one of those days that started out terrible and you thought that in a million years it could not get any worse but it did? Well that is what happened to Doc and I on Tuesday and it was a series of events that I hope to never repeat again.
Picture this, it’s about 5:10am Tuesday and Doc let me out the back door to use the bathroom before breakfast like she always does. I meandered out on the porch like usual. It’s still dark, so Doc put the flood lights on in the yard. She turns the lights on for two reasons, one is so any critters in the yard get a warning that I am coming out and two, so she can see me. Neither of us saw anything after she turned the lights on but just as I was ready to go down the steps, I heard something over to the left of the porch by the rose bushes and I jumped off to investigate. My first bad idea.
It was a skunk and apparently I startled it so much that it could barely get any spray out because it just wanted to get away from me. I ran away when I smelled it and when Doc saw me, I was smacking my jaw open and closed and running around the yard. Alarmed she thought I was sick to my stomach and opened the back door to see if I was ok. She smelled a slight odor of skunk but smelled after smelling me all over she let me in the house. I guess she didn’t think I had been sprayed as it was not very strong and she just thought the odor had waffled into the house and not hit me directly. I then ate my breakfast and she put me in the car and off we went to work. The second bad idea of the day.
The windows were down in the car so she didn’t smell a thing. When we got to work she asked her first patient if I smelled like skunk and the patient replied no. Now I think the patient was just trying to be nice and not hurt our feelings because before long people were asking why the place smelled like a skunk. It was so embarrassing that Doc and I did the walk of shame out of the office and to the car and drove home. She finished out the rest of her work day doing tele health. By 9am even Doc could smell me and since I did not want to be alone even though I smelled to high heaven, I slept right next to Doc the rest of the work day while Doc explained to her patients why they could not be seen in person. Even with the windows open and the fans on, the house stunk. Finally after Doc was done with work she took me outside and gave me a bath using her old skunk removal mixture of hydrogen peroxide, dishwashing soap and baking soda. I hated the bath, but boy does that potion work. Happy day! No more smell.
After the bath, Doc decided to go over to the rose bushes to see where the skunk had been and boy what a surprise she got. The first thing she noticed was a piece of a honey comb laying on the ground next to a big hole in the mulch bed. As she got closer she saw hundreds of bees down in a big hole. That little stinky Pepe Le Pew had found itself a nest full of tasty bees for a delicious end of night snack. And that’s when Doc put two and two together. She now realized that not only was I sprayed but I had been stung by bees. Well the nest was quite large and since it was uncovered and right by the porch Doc decided it needed relocated. The last bad Idea.
So what hair brain idea did Doc come up with for the bee’s relocation? She decided to get a shovel to move the hive. Now by this point in the story you are probably questioning Doc’s intelligence and you have a right to, given what she did. I probably don’t have to tell you what happened next. Yup, you got it, the bees were not happy about being evicted. After all, they were still grieving the demise of the other bees in their colony that the skunk had eaten earlier that morning. So they did what any group would do when evicted without notice, they rose up and Doc got stung, not once, but about 10 times. Then for good measure they chased her around the yard and some even followed her back in the house. I tried to protect her as best I could by jumping up and catching them in my mouth before they could sting her. Luckily I was not hurt this time.
Doc is left with some pain and swelling on her body and a stinky house. A tough lesson learned for someone that usually make good choices. Today, I am letting Doc go it alone to face our co-workers that had to smell skunk all day. Doc did get some de-skunker at the pet store to take to work, so hopefully that will get rid of the smell. But for today, I will hide out at home. I can’t bare to see the stares and listen to the whispers about the odor we brought to work, it’s just too embarrassing.
