Summing Up The Smiths: Skunk Town

A couple weeks ago, December 4-11, was a week that I will not forget for a LOOOOOONG time. First of all, I haven’t been sleeping much at night due to not being comfortable in bed or the constant urge to go to the restroom. But, not only did I have those two issues playing against me I also had the issue of a snoring husband. There is nothing more irritating than wanting to sleep so incredibly bad and Scott sleeping so deeply that he is snoring. I get so annoyed by his snoring that I wake him up so many times that he eventually goes into the guest room or the nursery and goes to sleep. This night was no exception to him moving rooms. When I got up Tuesday morning he had slept in the guest bedroom. Sunday night I didn’t sleep but maybe 2 hours total, so Monday was absolutely dreadful at work. I could barely hold my eyes open. Low and behold Tuesday night’s sleep was no better. I ended up calling into work Tuesday. I felt absolutely dreadful. I guess just exhausted? For those of you who know me, know that I have been hoarding my days this year because I am terrified that I will not have enough days after Suzy is born and I will be docked if she or I get sick and I have to miss, so taking a day off work is a HUGE deal to me. I took all day Tuesday and did nothing but rest, sleep, rest, and sleep some more. I just knew when I woke up Wednesday morning that it was going to be a good day since I was so refreshed. I WAS WRONG!!!! I remember waking up around 4 am and smelling a “skunky smell”, but didn’t pay much attention to it because there are always skunks around our house. My dogs have either been sprayed by one or rolled around on a dead one at least 3 times this fall/winter. I went back to sleep, woke up, got dressed for work, walked out the door to my garage and it hit me like a ton of bricks…. MY GARAGE, DOGS, AND CAR reeked of a skunk. It was absolutely disgusting. I knew that everything stunk, and stunk bad… But, what I didn’t know is that when you get into car that has been infested by skunk that you will in turn have the smell on you!!! I get to school that morning and everyone asks me how I am feeling after being off Tuesday and I proceed to tell them that I feel great blah, blah, blah and then it hits me. I smelt myself. I stunk. I went to Jill Lamar’s room and asked her if she smelled me, because she is a stickler for smells. She said she didn’t so I thought I was overreacting. Then, I went to Alisha Foxworth’s room to ask her the same question, “Do I stink?”, she told me that I didn’t as well so I went back to doing my morning hall duty. Then Fox comes out of her room and says, “Yeah, yeah, you do smell” and Jill comes out of her room and says the same thing. Fox has had the skunk issues a lot so she filled me in on what I needed to do to get the smell out of my house, car, and off my dogs. In the meantime, I waited on the tardy bells to ring then asked Mr. Herrington to please let me leave. He agreed that I definitely needed to get the smell off me and come on back to work. I had every intention of coming back to work when I got the smell off me (remember, I have been hoarding my days and wont take off unless I HAVE to), but it was impossible for me to make it back to work. If I would have changed clothes I still would have had to get into my smelly car. It was a vicious cycle. I was doomed. Two days in a row down the drain. I went to Performance to get my dad’s work truck so I could take my dogs to the vet and get them cleaned. While they were there Memaw and I planned on cleaning my garage up and Dad was going to figure out a plan to get my car cleaned up. We googled, and googled, and googled all the ways to get rid of the skunk smell found that ammonia, vinegar, and peroxide helped. So, Memaw and I got busy in the garage cleaning it. It seemed to help a little, but all we were doing is masking one odor with another odor. Instead of skunk it smelt like ammonia. It too turned out to be harder than we expected. I just decided to leave the garage alone and turn all my attention to my car. Without my car I couldn’t go to work, so that was now my main priority. Dad found a guy to clean my car up, but the guy told Dad it would take up to a week and could cost anywhere around $500. Yes, this news made me sick to my stomach but I had no choice. I had to have a car, a clean car that didn’t smell or make me smell. Performance called me and told me that no one up there would take my car to the detail shop for me because it smelled so bad, so I had to get back in the smelly Tahoe and take it to the detail shop. While my car was at the shop I drove Teresa Littlejohn’s suburban so that I didn’t have to rent a car. I got to go back to work Thursday and Friday!! I got a message Friday telling me that my car was finished and that I could pick it up at 4:20. I was super thrilled. I couldn’t believe that he had gotten finished with it so quickly. When I got there he explained to me how hard it was to break the smell and how he did finally get it out of my car. He used some odor bombs that cover 6,000 sq ft per bomb. He had to use 2 (or 3, I can’t remember) to get the smell out. Besides the fact that my car smelled good, it also looked amazing. He deserved every single penny that he charged. It was like driving a new car. I didn’t even want my dogs to ride in it (and that’s telling ya somethingJ).

After the skunk fiasco was over Mom, Dad, and I left for Smith Lake. We didn’t get to leave town until about 6:00 Friday night. Scott, Memaw, and Ricky were already there working. We finally got there around 10:00. After breakfast Saturday morning we sat around for several hours waiting on the carpet people to show up. The only thing left to do to the upstairs was to have the carpet put down. The installers were 3 hours late!! But, after the carpet was completed we started moving furniture upstairs. Oh my goodness, it is amazing how much better everything looks now that it is all clean and new! The upstairs is now complete. All we have left to do is accessorize J We woke up Sunday morning and tried to do a few last minute things before we left to come home. I tried to help Memaw paint her bedroom downstairs, which I have discovered that I am far too large to be trying to do. I am now on the cleaning crew.