The trap itself consisted of a wire cage - a live trap - into which the skunk would be encouraged to stroll, as if entering a restaurant to check on the daily special. There it would be caught and, if all worked according to my plan, transported to a more skunk-friendly location. Everything was in place. All I had to do was try to take shallow breaths while inside my home, and wait.

 

I must say that during the short time I spent with my skunk, I learned more about skunks in general than the internet could share. My skunk was a spotted skunk, not the usual white-stripe-down-the-middle-of-a-black-highway variety. My skunk preferred spraying under my trailer at 5 a.m. on a lazy Sunday morning, prompting me to open all the doors and windows. My skunk waited until I had to go to teach school on Monday morning to let me know that it, too, would eat apples. I guess we bonded somewhere between the pre-dawn of Sunday when we first met and the pre-dawn of Monday, at which time I knew my skunk definitely had to go.

I ignored the quarry in my trap and went to work, aware that my skunk would be lonely and scared, confined to its wire cell under the front deck until late in the afternoon. This delay before it would once again experience freedom couldn't be helped. Truthfully, I felt trapped myself, pacing my classroom, planning how to avoid being sprayed when I tried to drag the trap out from under the deck and place it in the bed of my truck, then again when I released the skunk into the wild. We were of different species but of one mind. For both of us, life temporarily stunk.

When I got home from work, I found an old ratty blanket in the garage to throw over the trap. I impersonated a magician conjuring a trick, concentrating on a spell that would make the skunk disappear, but it didn't work. I started the truck and drove for miles to what I'll refer to here as an undisclosed location. I don't want any game officers alerted and, besides, a skunk demands its privacy, too.

Once I placed the trap on the ground, off toward a thick patch of tall brown grass, I wedged a stick into a slot so the door would stay open. I stepped back, way back.
And I waited. Five minutes elapsed before the skunk's nose made its first appearance, sniffing around the perimeter of the door. At last, I thought, my skunk has caught the scent of freedom. When it was fully emerged from the trap, I waved my arms like a runway attendant high on jet fumes. Go, I urged. Live once more. The skunk taxied a 360 and scurried back inside the trap! This went on for 20 minutes, in and out, in and out. I never realized how difficult it is to reverse one's in-stink.

So I tied a long cord to the trap and from a distance snatched it away once the skunk emerged. What should have been applauded as the work of a genius turned into a disaster, for as soon as my skunk saw its cover vanish, it scrambled across the parking lot gravel and climbed swiftly into the rear wheel well of my truck. I kid you not. It found a cranny between the box metal and literally disappeared.

No matter how much racket I made jumping up and down in the bed of the truck or how patiently I waited beside the tall grass, my skunk refused to show itself. I started the truck and gunned the engine, which only reminded me that I did, after all, own a gun.
Eventually, the sun headed for its nest on the horizon, but I stood in the cold, too far away from my home to walk there. And if I drove my truck home, the skunk, a nocturnal creature, would no doubt climb down from the wheel well and return to its familiar nook under my trailer. Déja vu is one thing, but déja phew I can live without.

In the end I had no choice: I drove my truck back to town, parked it at another undisclosed location and walked a short distance to a good friend's house. He would understand, I told myself. He wouldn't laugh at me.

He laughed. He wanted to hear the entire story, twice. Then he drove me home and even came back the next morning to pick me up and drop me at the spot where I'd parked my truck overnight. The windshield had a thick layer of ice, which he helped me scrape before getting into his own truck, laughing once more, and driving away.

I started the engine. The exhaust produced a cloud of vapor that hung in the still morning air. My skunk, thank goodness, had departed, leaving me with a whiff of my dignity - in human terms, one of the least common scents.