This morning I was working in my office when Benito made his “oh crap” meow, quickly followed by the low, throaty grumble that means he’s hurt. At the same time, I saw a brownish blur head into the back bedroom.

About one half-second later, as I was springing out of my chair to check on him, I already knew the reason for his distress as it hit my olifactory apparatus: he’d been skunkified. Apparently, contrary to what Christopher said just the other evening (”You know, I bet they’ve already made friends”), Benito and Sir Stinkalot #3 (#1 and 2 having been trapped already) had an unpleasant encounter and Benito got the worst of it.

Crapity-crap-crap. As I got to him in the back room (luckily not our bedroom), he had his eyes fully shut and was doing the “my GOD that tastes awful get it out NOW” tongue-thing cats do. I, as usual when an animal is in distress, panicked. I yelled for Christopher and we took the poor (and offending, might I add) beastie into the garage where the stink would do less collateral damage.

Actually, I didn’t really register just how bad it smelled as I panicked, but when we saw that Benito was not hurt any more than having taken a good hit in the face and eyes and as I called the vet and the emergency vet for instructions, the odor really hit. Imagine licking burning tires covered in first-morning urine from a homeless drunk who had found a twenty the night before. Now kiss the drunk and take a deep breath. You’re getting close.

And this was from a really minor attack. It’s not like Benito was fully engulfed or that the skunk had entered the house. This was from a relatively few drops which, I suspect, were shot from a distance.

I think I saw Jesus from the smell.

Anyway, the vets all said he should be fine, to keep an eye on him, use eyedrops if needed (on the cat…and us) and we bathed his head in some hydrogen peroxide/baking soda mixture (carefully, with cotton balls) to reduce his stinkiness. But mostly, it’s just going to have to wear off.

However, the house needed immediate attention. The throw rugs are all outside getting air and I was on my hands and knees using Oxyclean on the carpets. I got my workout for the day, scrubbing and mopping. But that seems to have made a huge difference.

Incense is burning in the garage (Benito is no longer isolated out there) and scented candles (vanilla is best) are working in the back bedroom. Every window is open and, I’m happy to report, the smell is definitely much better than it was.

So is Benito. Yes, he’s still stinky in spots and his eyes aren’t back to normal (a bit squinty yet), but he’s much, much better than he was.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 15th, 2007 at 12:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.