A Nose Knows

If you have a minute, I want to tell you a story. It’s a story I’m quite certain you’ve never heard. It’s also one of those stories you can’t make up. It’s a story about a girl, a skunk, and a cell phone. To get started, we have to go back to the very beginning on a small highway in the rolling hills of Vermont.

“What was that?” I asked my husband when I was startled out of a deep sleep by a sound similar in decibels to a sonic boom or Fran Dresher’s voice – I couldn’t tell which. It was midnight after all and we’d been driving since 8:00 a.m..

“It was nothing, just a bump in the road,” he quickly replied, as his eyes darted back and forth across the hood.

“A bump?” I couldn’t help but stare at him, mouth open. “You’ve got to be kidding me. I think whatever it was just cracked my back molar. See?”

“Shhhhhhh,” he quieted me. “You’ll wake up the kids.”

“Me? Are you serious? I think your bump (this is where I mimed quotations marks in the air with my fingers) took care of that. Or are you sure it wasn’t a turkey or a moose, a deer, maybe an intoxicated wandering pedestrian or something?” I just couldn’t help it, I ramble when I’m nervous. “Maybe it was a…….”

“EWHHHHHHHHHHHHH,” the kids yelled in unison from the backseat while making loud gasping, gagging sounds in between breaths. Meanwhile, I was frantically pressing the switch that rolls down the window like it was the emergency blow up button on an inflatable dingy attached to the side of a sinking ship. “What is that awful smell? Gross!”

Yep, they were up now.

“I’m sorry, alright?” my husband shouted before turning the car into a parking lot of an old, abandoned gas station. “The skunk ran right out in front of me. What was I supposed to do? Swerve and kill us all?”

“Aren’t you being a bit dramatic?” I shouted back as we all tore out of the car as fast as a silver bullet or a train or a Coors Light can or whatever it is that describes how Superman exited small, enclosed phone booths, I can’t really remember. Now, maybe it seems like my actions were a little bit dramatic, but we needed fresh air. Stat.

“Daddy,” our ten year old cried, her lower lip trembling. “Are you sure it’s dead? Shouldn’t we go back and see? What if she had babies somewhere that needed her?”

The eight year old chimed in to ask, “Does this mean we have to wash the car in tomato juice? ‘Cause I hate to break it to you, Dad, but this convenient store looks like it hasn’t been open since the Bush Administration.”

Unbeknownst to us, as my husband checked under the hood and in the grill for body parts with a broken Wizards of Waverly Place pencil, a book light he swiped off my Kindle, and an “I heart Spaghetti O’s” vintage T-Shirt he pilfered from the traveling dirty clothes bag to tie around the bottom part of his face, a similar situation was unfolding one state over on a small gravel road next to Lake Winnipesaukee in Meredith, New Hampshire. A place which, believe it or not, would be our final destination the very, next day.

When we finally did arrive there the next day, I couldn’t hide my excitement. “Oh my Gosh, you guys! You’re all grown up!” Well, the excitement might really have been over getting out of the car after two long days and realizing my two legs really did still work, but it was also about getting to see our extended family. This is definitely the highlight of our annual lake vacation: seeing our nieces and nephew, cousins and friends for the first time in a year.

“Oh no, it can’t be” said my husband, skipping all pleasantries and breaking up the circle of hugs with his elbow and a bottle of Febreze he must have found under the passenger seat. “It must be following us.”

“What’s following you, Uncle Charlie?” asked our sweet 14-year old niece, Jodi.

“The smell of the skunk we ran over in Vermont last night,” he told her while he sniffed our girls’ hair, and (I’m not really sure why) under their arms. “We can’t get rid of it.”

“Oh no, that’s just Couch Potato and Oreo,” she said, gesturing over to a blue laundry basket sitting in the shade on the beach. “The neighbors told us their mom was run over last night, right up there, across the street.”

Not being able to help ourselves, even after our late night escapade of the night before, we cautiously peered into the basket. And there they were: two of the most adorable teeny, tiny baby skunks I have ever seen. Well, actually, the only two baby skunks I’d ever seen, but who’s counting, especially while you’re trying to hold your breath.

“Aren’t they cute?” Jodi leaned over, reading my mind. “But my mom won’t let me keep them.”

That’s what I love about Nan. She’s a lot of fun, and she’s really, really smart.

“It’s okay,” Jodi shrugged. “They don’t allow you to remove the scent glands in the state of New Hampshire, anyways.”

“How do you know that,” I asked.

“I looked it up on my Droid, of course.” She held up the phone in its hot pink case just as it started to ring. “That’s probably the Wild Life Department now, calling about the babies. I gotta take this.”

While Jodi was on the phone, we all stood staring at the basket in silence, admiring little Oreo and Couch Potato . . . not to mention the girl who was resolved to save them. No one spoke -- probably because we are all still using our mouths to breathe in and out.

“Guess what, guys,” she said, waving her cell phone excitedly. “The Wildlife Center in Holderness will take them, but only if we get them there ASAP.”

“Alright, fine.” Gramma Flo pulled herself up out of her beach chair and grabbed her keys. “I’ll take them. Only they’re not riding shotgun, I’ll tell you that right now!”

So off they went. Two baby skunks, one cool, red mini-van driving grandma and a redheaded 14 year-old beauty with a heart of gold.

We found out later that Couch Potato didn’t make it. They tried everything they could, including hooking him up to the IV machine, but he was too dehydrated without his mom to make it. But thanks to Jodi, his sister is doing great. If you ever get up to Lake Winnipesaukee, you can even go visit Oreo in her new home in the wildlife center in Holderness. You might even run into Jodi and her friends checking up on her there.

I’ve thought a lot about the crazy parallels of the universe since then: how two things can be the same or happen at the same time but have totally different outcomes. The only thing I do know for sure is that life happens. It’s what you do in its aftermath that counts. I even got to witness for myself how – thanks to the power of a Droid and the love and determination of a teenaged girl who knew how to use it -- one person can change the fate of another living, breathing, and, yes, stinking thing.