I never thought I would hear the words “don’t panic” coupled with “there’s a skunk in the house”. I could make a list of things I never thought my mom would say to me, and this is so far out there that I don’t think I could have even made it up; but guess what? Not ten minutes ago my mom came into my room and said, and I quote, “Kelsey, now don’t panic, but I thought you should know that there’s a skunk in the house.” How does that not immediately ensue panic! Obviously this was something I’d have to see to believe so I snuck my way downstairs to get a glimpse of the already unbelievable situation (and honestly, I still didn’t quite believe what I saw).  The skunk wasn’t just hiding in a corner – no, that would be too easy – he had crawled underneath the ottoman and wasn’t coming out! I watched in shock as my dad slowly slid a broom under the couch, trying to usher the thing out the front door, but the skunk would run towards it and make a hissing noise! I 100% thought it was going to spray my dad right in the mouth, no questions asked but something must have been watching over him because that never happened.

After about an hour of the back and forth with the broom, it was clear that we needed a new plan of attack.  If the skunk wanted to stay in the dark, then we would have to make it dark.  Memories of pillow forts that covered the entire room flooded into my mind, and call me crazy, but I knew exactly what we had to do.  We gathered together some large, old boxes from both our garage and the neighbors’ and laid them together like a tunnel, then we covered the tops with old sheets and table cloths so that there was no light shining in at all and there it was: our home made skunk tunnel. If this bad boy wouldn’t get the skunk out of our house, then that was it, I was moving.

We all stood by, waiting anxiously to see if it would work. After a few seconds of silent anticipation, my dad nodded to my little brother to open the front door before he slowly bent down and prodded at the skunk with the broom.  This time, instead of running at my dad, we saw the skunk crawl out from the couch, run through our makeshift tunnel, and down the front steps.  We all cheered and I have to admit, it was pretty cool.  I don’t know how I managed to stay calm and not panic, especially when there was a skunk in my house, but I guess I’m good at keeping my cool?