Thursday, 8/9

The skunks are back.

Those of you who’ve been reading these ramblings since the days of the dinosaurs may remember an ongoing “problem” Loraine and I discovered when we moved into our current apartment eleven years ago. Well, actually, we discovered two things—that drunk college students can make a lot of noise, and that, for some strange reasons, skunks seem to like our tightly packed little urban neighborhood. At least once a week for the first couple of years we lived here we would be treated to that olfactory wonder known as skunk spray wafting through the buildings, not a very nice treat when it’s warm out and you want to leave your windows open to let in a little air. Then one year, after road construction tore apart our neighborhood, the skunks seem to disappear. We had hoped it would be for good. . .

Unfortunately, it was not.

Almost a dozen nights now this summer we've had our windows open, enjoying a cooling breeze and wondering how many times the you can hear a gaggle of drunk college students go “woo hoo” in unison. And almost a dozen times I've had something tickle my nose, something that within seconds had me rushing to shut the windows.

Yup.

I have no idea why (or how) skunks like our neighborhood. Like I said before, it’s a very tightly packed urban neighborhood; the houses are right next to each other, there aren’t a lot of big yards or trees, and there’s more concrete than grass & dirt. If I had to pick out one section of Marquette where I would guess skunks wouldn’t like to go it’d be ours. But apparently there’s something magical in our little section of the city, and it keeps drawing those wonders of nature back time and time again.

Aren’t we lucky?

I have no idea if this is now a permanent change to our neighborhood, or if there's just a plucky family of homesteading skunks that decided to give the area a try, soon to move on. I’m certainly hoping it’s the latter; after all, this is something you don’t want to have to deal with this on a nightly basis. You can shut noisy college students out with earplugs. I have yet to figure out anything that keeps the smell of skunk out of your nose.

Keep your fingers crossed.

(jim@wmqt.com)