Sam, your story got me thinking about a similar confrontation I had. Some years ago, I lived in a small village in northern NY, up on the Canadian border. I used to walk to work, as I worked midnight to 9AM and my wife needed our only car to go to work at 8AM. Walking to work one bitterly cold night at 11PM in January, I was forced to walk down the main street in the village due to large snow drifts blocking the sidewalks. Well, as I entered a stretch of street bounded on each side by high, frozen snow banks, I notice this animal coming up the street in the opposite direction. Of course, it is a skunk. I thought about going up onto the sidewalk, but the steep, icy, 6-foot high snow banks precluded any climbing. So, being a real man, I began to jump up and down and shout, hoping to turn the skunk around. He stopped in the middle of the road and stared at me. Next, I tried throwing pieces of ice at him, which pissed him off and had him literally hissing at me. At this point, I realized how ridiculous I must have looked to any spectators, so I threw in the towel and turned around to detour up another street. At this moment, I could see a car coming up the street behind the skunk. Well, I thought smugly to myself, now the little bugger will move and I can save myself a long detour. I stood there watching the oncoming car approach. The skunk turned around, saw the car, and started to run......right at me. Well, now it's a foot race down the middle of the street, with this skunk hot on my heels, running a zig zag pattern, trying to find a gap in the snow banks to get out of the street, and me running on icy streets in heavy boots. I slipped and fell on my butt, thankfully in the lane not occupied by the passing car, and the skunk ran right by me. The car stopped (the driver was one of my neighbors) and my neighbor asked me what the hell I was doing running down the street at 11PM. He had not seen the skunk and thought I was drunk or stupid or both.... I tried to explain, but i just couldn't come up with a version that didn't make me look like a moron.
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TRAVELLER, SHOULD YOUR ROAD LEAD YOU TO SPARTA, TELL THEM THAT YOU SAW US LYING HERE AS THE LAWS WILLED IT.
-Inscription on a Greek monument to Leonidas and his soldiers
Apparently, there is something that will get rid of the odor, it's called Skunk Off. You should be able to get it at your local vet and according to my family and friends, it works great.
