A Really Good, Very Bad, Really Good Monday and…Caddy Shack

Mondays are interesting around here. They can be mundane or they can make you wish you had a time machine and could transport yourself back to Friday so you could re-live the weekend. Yesterday was a doozy of a Monday by any estimation. Here’s a recap:

In case you were wondering how our skunk-a-thon was going I posted this over the weekend on social media.

Filed under the headings: In case you were wondering AND Count your blessings you’re not us-

Over here at the wildlife refuge the count so far (as of this morning) in “catch and release” is (drum roll)
4 skunks
1 raccoon 
And two house cats (who we released immediately in order to avoid messy feline litigation).

Not to mention the party platter of poison that’s starting to make a dent in our Bombay-esq rat population.
So, yeah.
#lifeintheburbs

The good news is, Ruby hasn’t been skunked in a while (knocking wood) although the odiferous smell of Pepe Le Pew wafted thought the bedroom recently at three am waking us both up and I had to race her to the doggie door (I am not fast on my feet at 3 am but thankfully, neither is she) so I could block her exit and save us (and her) another middle of the night Silkwood Skunk Shower.

The bad news is, the latest skunk was trapped sometime around dawn on Sunday (Ruby actually alerted me in a very Lassie Come Home kind of way, going out back and then sheepishly poking her head in the den, repeatedly interrupting my coffee with “Mom, Uh…I think you need to see this…”) so I finally did, and there it was, and the sad part is the exterminator doesn’t pick up critters on Sundays. (No worries, it has food and every time we checked on it, it was sleeping.)

“Monday,” they said when we called them at seven. “Just don’t agitate him and he’ll be fine. Nick will pick him up on Monday.”

Nick. Nick…how do I explain Nick?

“Hey, How would you describe Nick? I asked my husband last night. “He feels a little like a cross between Forrest Gump and Rain Man. I’m not sure if he’s daft…or a savant.”

“He’s Carl Spackler (Bill Murray) in CaddyShack,” he replied without looking up from his Sudoku.

I just about peed my pants. “Oh, my, gawd! That is so accurate it’s scary!” I screamed with glee.

Nick IS Spackler. A know-it-all expert on all things extermination related. Same hat, same pants tucked into his boots, he carries on hour-long mumbly monologues if you dare ask him a question. Not only can you NOT get a word in edgewise, you can even step away to go to the bathroom or make yourself a sandwich and he’ll still be talking when you get back.

All of this to say: He is the perfect exterminator for me. My husband runs when he sees him—I follow him around like a gray haired, middle-aged puppy dog.

I’ve even caught him talking to the trapped critters! When I mentioned it he explained to me that he has to gain their trust so he can transport them to their release up in the hills above Mulholland with a minimum of fuss, anxiety, and pee-ew.

Now I know what you’re thinking (that he doesn’t release them—he kills them) and I did too at first, that is until he showed me the movies.

That’s right, Nick has made movies on his smart phone (with Bill Murray like narration, “She’s a little timid to come out of her cage, so we’ll just wait until Princess feels more comfortable.”) of each and every release he’s done. It’s freaking incredible (and a little bit scary) but I love him for it.

So, yeah, Nick is the Spackler of exterminators.

While I was waiting for Nick to come and pick up our latest “guest”, I went out front to cut and paint a few more of my magic wands. That’s when I noticed a card inside the container and it made my day (or at least my hour). I took a picture of it and texted it to Raphael. He sent back a nice reply.

What a lovely Monday you’re thinking. Right? Not so fast.

Little did I know that he and Ruby had just averted certain death.

Saturday, my husband took his work van to get the tires rotated.
I know that’s a thing, but it’s so inconsequential to me that I erased it from my internal hard drive in order to save bandwidth for more important things—like every phone number I’ve ever had—and song lyrics. Anyway, YOU need to remember this because it comes into play later. Ok, well, now.

Monday morning while he and Ruby were speeding their way to work (they were lucky if they were going 40 mph) the van started to shake. Badly. He looked down out of his driver’s side window and saw the left front tire wobbling wildly. After he unclenched his sphincter muscle and his balls came back down from up around his ears, he pulled over and checked the tire. It seems that the lug nut, thingamabobs were stripped so badly they became loose and the tire was literally about to fall off. ON the freeway. With my dog inside the car. Wasn’t that an episode of Sanford and Sons?

Well, I just about lost my shit!

He told me this after he limped the thing home, stopping several times along the way to tighten the metal thingies that keep the wheel on the car. In other words, he MacGyver’d it. With no help from the little brown dog, by the way.

“I was in the middle of texting you when you sent me the picture of the card about the magic wands”, he said. “So I thought, no, I’d better not tell her now, she’ll just lose her shit.”

I just stood there, gobsmacked. (BTW: The W, T and F keys are worn bare on my computer because of stuff like this!)
That’s one of those moments you realize that your life could change in an instant and that skunks would become the least of your problems. Maybe it was the magic wands that saved them?

Do you have emotional whiplash yet? I do!

Carry on,
xox

Magic wands(with help from Sue and Maddee)