A skunk.
Luckily (well, not luckily actually), I had been through this exact scenario with her before...
A few years ago, I had an apartment with a few friends and I decided to take Rukka out one last time before we all went to bed. It was around 1:30 in the morning and about 0 degrees out. After two minutes of standing there holding the leash and shivering my ass off, my brainiac dog runs so hard that she literally snaps the leash in half and takes off for the porch. I immediately ran over to try to break up whatever fight was about to ensue (Rukka's a pitbull and not very sociable with other animals), but before i could get to the porch, I hit a wall of the most horrific odor I had ever smelled. Getting sprayed by a skunk is nothing like smelling one on the side of the highway. It's like a mixture of ammonia, bleach, and burning poo. You literally taste it. I ran back into our apartment screaming and the rest of my roommates came out. By this point, Rukka was flipping the skunk up in the air and catching it with her mouth. I wish that was even an exaggeration. One of my roommates tried to bite the bullet and run into the death cloud but came out only to yak up dinner all over our front lawn. All of our eyes were pouring water and burning as we stood there and waited for it to end. When it finally did, Rukka was foaming at the mouth. All I could think of was rabies, but then we all realized that it was her body's way of trying to flush the chemicals out of her mouth. Someone quickly got the hose and one of us ran upstairs to grab whatever tomato product we could find. I don't remember what it was, but knowing the usual condition of our fridge, it was probably a packet of ketchup. We scrubbed her down as fast as we could and rinsed her off and then rushed her upstairs to get her out of the freezing cold air before she became a big stinky pupsicle. Unfortunately for us, the door had locked behind us. And being that it was the middle of the night and we were all in our jammies, no one had thought to bring out their keys. We were on the second floor so climbing in a window wasn't an option and our landlord lived over an hour away. And so, a day later, we were on the phone with our landlord trying to explain why we had taken a baseball bat to the window of our front door. She seemed to understand. We were also still trying to figure out why, after four tomato baths, Rukka Pooka still smelled like skunk pizza. Turns out the ole tomato routine is just an old wive's tale. After a quick google search, we found that dish detergant was our best option and after one bath, she was good as new. Well except for any time she got wet for the next three months.
And so last night, as I opened the door to see what the holdup was and was hit with the rancid cloud of toxic doom, I had some idea what I was dealing with. I slammed the door as fast as I could, but not before inhaling the chemical mouthful that I had wished I would never taste again in my life. I woke up my father, prepared my arsenal of dish detergant, rags, and lemon juice, and waited for the fight to end. The fight, by the way, was taking place underneath my Mom's car which was a great wake-up present as she left for work this morning. Shockingly, the detergant worked like a charm and with the exception of a small patch on her head (that I was too nervous to really soap up), Rukka was impressively clean smelling. I gave myself a smug pat on the back, decided for one more follow-up scrub down in the morning, and considered the night an inconvenient but tolerable story to add to my collection. Except that that's not how my luck works. Way too satisfied with myself, I filled up the tub an hour before class today to apply the final hose-down. Stacks of cheese and biscuits ready, I picked up my little terror and attempted to plop her into the lukewarm water. Rukka had other plans. Still, hours later, I haven't figured how it happened but at some point between me lifting her up and her feet landing in the water, something slammed down on the water spout of our tub with enough force that it not only snapped the spout off, but completely broke the pipe off.
Gorgeous huh?
The only advantage I do have is that my boyfriend is a plumber (which seems just a little ironic with the whole ghost... well anyway) so it should be fixed right up but that didn't help me as I stood in the bathroom soaked in sweat, covered in skunky dog hair, and needing to be in class in a half hour. And so here I am. Sitting on the couch in filth, missing the second class of a new semester with the cause of all of my misfortune curled up in my lap. And even though the last 24 hours have been a nightmare, I can't help but smile as her big brown eyes stare up at me apologetically.
Honestly, who could be mad at that face?
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