A Big Mistake

My favorite story growing up, was the story my mom would tell about my grandma letting a skunk in the house.  Some background on my Grandma Loo, she was partially blind from shooting accident with her brother in her teens.  She also had a large black cat with (as my mom would say) a tail so long a fluffy you could wear it like a boa when you held her in your arms.  Her, my grandfather, and my mom lived on a few acres outside of Midway, Utah, where they raised a few cows, pigs, goats, horses, and chickens.  CoCo (the cat) would stay outside most of the day and night, but would come in if she ever got scared or during storms.

For a few weeks, they were having trouble with raccoons breaking into the chicken pen and killing hens so Pop had set out some traps to catch the critters and keep them away from the chickens.  Mom would tell me the trap was useless sitting there bone dry without any sort of bait in it, how would they catch any animals in it? So when she saw Pop getting frustrated over the lack of animals in the traps, she decided to use some canned chicken to bait the trap and help her dad.  The problem is, she didn’t realize that he hadn’t baited the trap because Loo would’ve killed him if he trapped her precious kitty.

Now, I’m sure you can imagine what happened the night after mom baited the trap – Grandma was sitting in her rocking chair doing I can’t remember what, when she heard the trap outside snap shut and could all of a sudden smell skunk.  Worried that CoCo was sprayed she opened the door to bring her cat inside, and luckily she was standing right on the porch.  Grandma couldn’t get her to come inside, so she opened a can of chicken and left it with the door cracked so she could come in when she wanted and then went to get Pop and tell him the trap had caught something.  When he checked the traps, what he found was grandma’s favorite cat hunched angrily inside and canned chicken on her whiskers.  Grandma Loo was of course startled when he told her because, “she had just let CoCo inside.  Panicked, they searched the house high and low until they found who grandma thought was CoCo.  A large skunk, curled up with it’s tail raised, was hissing defensively inside of the pantry.  Of course, my mom was in trouble for baiting the trap, Loo gave Pop the silent treatment for trapping her kitty, and it took Pop all night to get the skunk out of the house using a trail of anchovies and canned chicken.

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