Skunked!
Yesterday, I discovered a side effect of warm weather and early summer life:
Baby skunks.
I had my car parked for a couple of hours, and apparently an entire family of baby skunks–four in all–were hunkered down napping under my car by the driver’s side front tire, sheltering from the rain. I had no idea they were there. I did see a cat and so honked my horn to get the cat away from my car, and then ever so slowly backed away, looking around to make sure there were no small animals. I had a moment of confusion when I spied four little tails attached to four little black and white bodies moving away form my car as I backed out.
Two darted away to the car parked next to mine, and two first raised their tiny little tails as if to spray, and then began chasing my car as though they wanted the safety of being back under it!
I took a photo and then drove away, but noticed a definite smell inside of my car that consisted faintly of skunk and rancid garlic. I rolled down my window and as I drove and the smell began to dissipate but when I got back in my car this morning, the smell was back.
I’m now googling “how to remove skunk smell from the inside of your car.” My coworker told me that he learned on the ‘Brady Bunch’ as a kid that I should use tomato juice, which is probably not the most helpful thing for the interior of a car.
Worst case scenario, I have two more weeks of driving with my window down.