A Close Encounter of the Olfactory Kind

Weekend Assignment #9  A Story about a Pet from the Past:

This assignment is, as John said, a breeze and a subject we can all warm to.  Many years ago before we bought our house, we lived out in the country in a little rented house.  It was great in the summer but not so great in the winter.  Nevertheless, it was a wonderful place to be with a four-year old.  We remained there until my daughter turned seven.

This house was situated down a long driveway and right up from the banks of a small creek.  The back portion of the house was built up on pilings and the area underneath was wide open to any creature that wanted to crawl in and make itself at home.  Many did just that!  Squirrels were scampering around the rooftops when they weren't rolling nuts around above the ceiling and all sorts of mysterious rattling and shuffling around could be heard within the walls.

My husband and I quickly decided that we needed a cat to help keep the intruders at bay.  We'd never had a cat before but this was a matter of pure necessity.  Hey!  What a great name for a cat and so it was that the tiny grey tabby we adopted from the Humane Society came to be known to the world as "Necessity".  The name suited her perfectly.  As she matured, she was a dynamite mouser, small lizards were her specialty and one day she endured quite a confrontation in which she truly lived up to her name and earned her keep forever more.

A pair of skunks had decided to take up residence under our house and the spot they had chosen seemed to be directly under our bedroom floor.  It was at this time that I learned that skunks, who are nocturnal by nature, spray their noxious scent before they leave their lair and once again upon re-entering it.  Lovely.  We were forced out of our bedroom and had taken to sleeping on a mattress on the living room floor.  One evening we heard  terrible noises.  Hissing and snarling and yowling, oh my!  Necessity was roughing  up  something outdoors and it sounded like she clearly had the upper hand.

In due time, there was a meow and scratch at the door to "let me in, please" in kitty language.  My husband got up to open the door and immediately reeled back.  She had been mixing it up with the skunks, of course, and got thoroughly sprayed.  Dear Lord, how she stank!  It was awful.  We had no idea what to do but before too long, my resourceful husband called the vet and explained the situation.

"Got any tomato juice?", asked the vet.  "That's what you need to neutralize the odor of the skunk spray, give her a bath in tomato juice."

"No," answered my husband "but we have some homemade tomato sauce my wife just brought home from her mother's."  We were advised to try that so our poor cat, the valiant victor of a mighty battle, suffered the indignity of an immediate and thorough bath of intensely flavored tomato sauce.  It worked just fine but she smelled like a pizza for a long time after this incident.  And oh yes, the skunks made off for greener pastures never to be seen again.

Our beloved Necessity was quite the cat.  She turned my husband into an appreciator of cats for the first time in his life and taught us both that cats can indeed be very affectionate and loyal.  For the longest time, we were dying to get a basset hound which we would've named "Extravagance" but we never quite got around to it.  Our kitty lived a long and healthy life.  One day, I came home from work and found her curled up peacefully in a little ball in one of the grass nests she liked to rest in as she got older.  She was gone from us but we enjoyed her company and antics for seventeen years.