As The Pony and I turned into the school drive this morning, I spied a dead skunk on the road in front of the building. MY side of the building. About a hundred yards from my room. I smelled it first, of course.
While The Pony gagged, I lamented that this was my duty day. Parking lot duty. Granted, it's on the other parking lot, at the other end of the building, and on the back side. But still. Skunk odor does not know the boundaries of front and back and this end or that. Nor the boundaries of good taste.
We climbed out of T-Hoe. Snorted a bit. That's OUT, not IN. I'll be Gummi Maryed if the INSIDE of the building didn't smell worse than the parking lot. And my room smelled worse than the hall. So I did what any respectable teacher would do. No. I didn't spray my Febreze Autumn Spice Crisp around the classroom. I propped open my door so that when I came back from duty in thirty minutes, the students would not be able to differentiate between the hallway and the classroom. Because they always like to shout, "What STINKS in here?" Like it has something to do with me. Not twenty of their peers they just passed on the way in.
I kind of thought the smell had dissipated. I didn't notice it upon returning to the building after duty. Or in my classroom. But when I entered the women's faculty restroom on my plan time second hour, it returned. It must have been in my hair and on my clothes. Because it was definitely noticeable in that confined space.
I hope I don't smell skunk when the first shower droplets hit my hair in the morning.
Do you remember that song (from the 70's, I believe) "Dead Skunk in the Middle of the Road" (by Loundon Wainwright III, I believe)?
ReplyDeleteThere's a line in the song, "Stinkin' up to high heaven." Since the stench was in your hair, does that mean that you were flying high above the rest of us normal folk, high where only gods and dwell?
Sioux,
ReplyDeleteOf course I remember that song. The team used to sing it on the volleyball bus. Perhaps all the way from Hillmomba to Springfield, just before winning 2nd place in the state tournament.
I am high on life, baby! Lording it over mere mortals who sit safely in their basements, never deigning to risk a chance encounter with an odiferous two-toned polecat.