Thank goodness Barney was carrying the bullet today

Walking home from the post office this afternoon I looked up the road and saw that I was sharing the sidewalk with a skunk, heading my way.

Skunks are nocturnal.

Skunks are shy.

Shunks normally don't stagger like drunken sailors coming out of an alley where they'd just been rolled for their wallets.

This skunk was disobeying all the skunk rules.

I stopped in my tracks.

The skunk stopped in his.

I decided to cross the street.

The skunk decided to cross the street.

I undecided to cross the street.

The skunk undecided to cross the street.

Then he un-undecided to cross again.

Then he un-un-undecided, right in front of an oncoming car, which somehow managed to swerve in time to leave the skunk unflattened.  The car behind that one slammed on its brakes and stopped in time to save the skunk's three-dimensionality too.  The skunk was ungrateful.  It turned and raised its tail and sprayed the car.

By this time I had backed a ways down the sidewalk.  I turned and hurried the half-block to the police station where, as luck would have it, a visiting sheriff's deputy was just climbing into her cruiser to go back out on patrol.

She rolled down her window.

I told her about the skunk.

Skunks are nocturnal, I said.  Skunks are shy.  Skunks don't normally try to fight it out with SUVs and Toyota Corollas.  A skunk out in the daytime, acting the very opposite of shy, and thinking it can scare off automobiles has something wrong with it.  Like rabies.

The deputy looked very much like somebody who wanted to say, I'm going on my lunch break now.  Why don't you go inside and tell one of the town cops?

She didn't.  She asked where the skunk was.  I pointed to the brake lights of the latest car to to avoid splattering the skunk all over the road.  The deputy sighed and shook her head and laughed a little.  "I'll take care of it," she said.

I thanked her and set off for home by the back way.

A couple minutes later I heard a ka-pow.

Half a minute later I heard a second ka-pow.  The coup de gras.

Not too long after that I saw the deputy's cruiser turning the corner and heading my way.  The deputy recognized me and rolled to a stop.

"Got him," she said through her open window.  She didn't look proud of the fact.

I stepped up to the car to congratulate her.

I stepped back.

"I got some blown back at me," she said.

I nodded.  I would have said something but I was planning not to breathe again until she drove off.

"Good thing I got a cold," she said, "I can't smell it on me too much."

"Pine-Sol," I said, trying not to inhale as I spoke.

"I heard that's the best thing," she said.

"Tomato juice's supposed to work too," I said, backing away.

She smiled an apology.

"Thanks for taking care of it," I said.

She nodded.  She wore the look of someone who wanted to say, Next time you get the urge to be a good citizen and report something like this, stifle it.  But she just said so long and drove off.

This reminds me of a Chris the Cop story.

Once upon a time, back in Syracuse, where our old pal Chris the Cop was doing his police sergeanting, a rabid raccoon appeared to terrorize our neighborhood.  The cops were called---by me.  I have a history of sicking the Law on these woodland creatures, don't I?---and a patrolman arrived with his gun drawn to dispatch the poor suffering beast, who had decided to pace out what he might have known were his final moments on earth on the edge of our next door neighbor's lawn.

The patrolman approached the raccoon cautiously.  Stopped about fifteen feet away.  Assumed a marksman's pose and fired.

He looked at the raccoon.

The raccoon looked back.

The patrolman shook his head in dismay.  Then he moved forward a couple of feet, aimed, and fired again.

The raccoon grinned.

The patrolman took another couple of steps towards the raccoon.  He fired again.

The raccoon was laughing at him now.

The cop squeezed off another round.

I swear the raccoon was standing up with his thumbs in ears, waggling his fingers at the cop, and sticking out his tongue.

The cop walked up to him and blew him to kingdom come.

Later that day, Chris stopped by, as was sometimes his habit when he was out on patrol, for a Pepsi.  We told him about the raccoon and the patrolman.

"How many shots did it take?" Chris asked.

"Five."

"And he was how far away?"

"About five feet when he finally got him."

"You get the officer's name?"

We hadn't.  Chris looked grim.  He said he'd call in and find out when he got back in his car.

"Why?"

"Somebody," Chris said, "Is about to begin spending a lot of extra time on the target range."

Comments

[Mike Schilling]

Sounds like a job for old One-shot Finch.

[actor212]

Rabid skunks are not much fun.

[Judith]

I do not like this story. Poor little raccccccccon.

byw, your byline about the romantic view and cops makes me chuckle everytime I read it.

[Fixer]

... a lot of extra time on the target range.

It don't matter how much practice they get. Cops couldn't shoot straight to save their ass. Personally, I think we should adopt the English idea and take guns away from cops. Less collateral damage.

[Lance]

Fixer,

Don't sheriff's deputies count as cops? She nailed the critter with one shot. The second was just to make sure.

[mparker]

The Squirrel Story: Rutherford NJ.
My neighbors had a squirrel get into their chimmmey. They had a grated cover but a storm had blown it off center which left a tiny space for the rodent to enter. They were a very nice old couple and I don't think either of them could have ever harmed the creature, but they did agree that it had to be removed.

Their mistake was calling the cops.

After confirming that there was indeed a furry trespasser somewhere in the dirty chimmney one of the officers had what he thought was a great idea, which was to put some lit road flares in the fireplace and scare the littl guy out the top. While they were working out the details another car arrived for a total of 4 cops to remove a rodent. We kids stood outside and listened as the screaming started. See, they didn't let the Squirrel in on the plan and I guess he was just doing what squirrels do and didn't want to die. When he got a whiff of the smoke coming off the flares he tried to get out the top but probably couldn't find the opening. He was left only one option. He ran back down and out of the fireplace, as he did the flares caught his tail on fire. He ran up the drapes and the furniture and set the whole room on fire. The cops began blasting away an eventually the firemen came as well to put things right, hook and ladder and everything, for a rodent.

Eventually a fireman came out carrying a stick which had a small black lump on the end. Bye bye mister squirrel. Another job well done.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
One more/same town.

There was a raccoon hit by a car and laying in the street injured. Someone called the cops. When they arrived they were thinking of taking the critter away but it had more then enough life to convince them otherwise. The first squad car waitied for a second because with rodents you always want backup. Actually the second car had what they called an "animal control" gun. This was not some tranquilizer gun but just a very small calliber weapon they used to put down animals. Bang bang bang and that raccoon was just smiling. There were people around and I guess the cops were getting pissed. One of them pulled his pistol and a much louder, Bang, Bang, Bang. Wounded but nowhere near dead. The cops got back in their car and ran the thing over a few more times. The crowd was not pleased but again, mission accomplished.

[Ken Muldrew]

My dog got sprayed by a skunk about a month ago. It was pretty dark out and when I saw the creature remain nonchalant as the dog ran up to it (as far as one can make out nonchalance in a barely-visible silhouette), I thought it was a porcupine (porcupines and coyotes are common on this route, badgers much less so, and skunks unheard of up until last month). After a lot of yelling, the dog returned to me. At first I was pretty happy that there were no yelps of pain from the quills, then I found out that the creature wasn't a porcupine.

Tomato juice works remarkably well (as long as you can lather it onto the dog faster than he can slurp it up), but it's sure a lot easier to wash a dog outdoors in the summertime. As well, skunk spray is substantially more unpleasant when emitted during a hibernation break than the summertime variety. The scent that remains in the air the next day is nice, but the immediate dose is more musty and quite overwhelming.