Love stinks...

My family has recently had a series of very unfortunate events. Our 3 year old Whirlpool dryer died a week ago followed by Julianna and my mom coming down with the flu plus tornadoes and thunderstorms ripping through Tennessee. If that wasn't bad enough, our DirectTV dish could not find a satellite signal, on Superbowl Sunday! Good thing we really don't watch football...but still, DirectTV charged $80 to have someone come over to re-position our dish again. What a rip-off! You would think that was the end of our disastrous week? NOOO....We woke up yesterday to a very strong burnt plastic smell in the house. Thinking it was our HVAC system, we turned our heat off and called our heating guy to come check it out. Little did we know that February and March is mating season for striped skunks. Yes, while people are busy trying to find a date for Valentine's Day, or planning their romantic evening with their better half, amorous male skunks are busy doing some courting as well. That means "skunk smell" will be at its peak. According to The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), the stinky problem occurs when the male tries to court the female who may not be "in the mood." Unlike the sweet smelling gifts of perfume and flowers, the aroma generated when female skunks spray their rejected suitors is THAT smell that makes them so disliked by people.

When the HVAC guy came to check our unit, he said nothing was wrong with it. But he said that while he was passing by our crawl space door, he could smell a skunk. A male skunk must have been trying to court a female one in our crawl space last night and was rejected. The smell in our house was not intense enough, so I think it was from a female skunk who was not "in the mood". Jeff called a local Animal control group, and they came over and set up some traps for the skunk (or skunks). They charged us $150 for this plus $80 per animal that they will have to get rid of! I used to feel sorry for skunks getting hit by cars on the road, but at this point, I really, really started to hate them! But then I remembered my brother's favorite cartoon character, Pepe Le Pew, the French anthropomorphic skunk who was constantly seeking "l'amour" of his own. After Julianna and I spent some time watching old Pepe Le Pew clips on YouTube tonight, I don't think I completely hate skunks anymore, I just don't want them near my house again.

Our house smelled so bad that we decided to open windows and turn off our heat despite the freezing temperatures outside...but with the help of a little Febreeze and some fresh air, our house doesn't smell so bad anymore.

Our whole week has been such a disaster it is almost hilarious. I really hope that we are going to see the light at the end of the tunnel soon...and hopefully the light is not coming from a train. Aargh!