Paved with Good Intentions

So the experiment is on hold. Rush Limbaugh is on vacation this week. He announced this information on Friday by saying that the president is on vacation next week as well. And since Obama is clearly a pansy for needing a vacation after already having had a week of vacation, Rush thinks he might as well take one too. I was all ready to do some side-by-side comparisons. But it looks like it will have to wait until after Italy...

This Really Stinks!

Last night Brian and I let Reggie out around 9:30. We sat on the back steps peacefully watching him do his "business" and let him sniff around a little. All of sudden he takes off down the alley growling.

This is not unusual. You would think, by Reggie's actions, that the cats in our neighborhood are the greatest threat to safety and peace that our community has ever seen. Honestly. And he lives with two cats! But we would rather he not go chasing a cat around the block so we usually act pretty fast, yelling at him, "Come on Reggie, let's go in. REGGIE. GET OVER HERE!" And he responds fairly well and happily zips back into the house.

So this was the routine we followed last night when he ran into the alley growling. But as Brian and I went to follow Reggie into the house Brian said, "What's that smell?" It seems to me that "what's that smell" is never referring to the smell of baking bread or freshly picked flowers. Usually the reference is to something foul. And then the smell wafted to my nostrils. SKUNK.

And then the realization hit us. Our eyes met. I watched the horror sweep across his eyes...the same horror that was probably mirrored in my own eyes. It was no cat that Reggie chased down the alley. It was a skunk. Our little dog was in the house and we needed to find out if he had escaped the skunk's spray.

Upon walking into our house the scent that assailed our nostrils was more potent and vile than I had thought possible. We bent over to smell Reggie. We did not need to bend very far to be certain that he the smell torpedo had hit it's target.

I had heard horror stories of other dog owners whose dogs had been a little too curious with a small striped animal. I always worried that this could happen to us. We did not panic. There was no time for that though we would have liked to. We needed to move fast. We became an efficient crisis-management team. I shouted out commands.

1. I yelled at Brian to move the dog outside while I went to the Internet for instructions on handling this crisis. (I found an article walking me through the crisis step-by-step. I didn't read several articles to see what they said. I went with the first one. It seemed reliable.)
2. I began running bath water, opened windows, and plugged in an air freshener.
3. I then stripped down to little more than a pair of rubber gloves and told Brian to bring the dog in and deposit him in the tub.
4. I handed Brian the computer and told him to mix up the recipe for skunk-removal wash. (It involved hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap.)
5. We screamed about how horrid the house smelled, disbelieving how the 60 seconds Reggie had spent in the house had tainted our happy home beyond all reason.
6. I secured the area that had been sprayed on the dog and began washing it vigorously...all the while telling Reggie how bad he is.
7. Brian brings the mixture and we wash the aforementioned area with that as well.
8. Brian then removed the dog from the tub and dried him.
9. Reggie then did his happy I-just-had-a-bath dance and began running through the house totally unscathed.

We, in the mean time, are left with a house that smells like a mixture of burnt plastic and organic foulness. Every 20 minutes or so we would break down and start screaming about how bad it smells in this house! I made popcorn to try to cover the smell. Even that didn't work. Brian seems to have an especially weak constitution where the smell is concerned. When we finally head to bed Brian admits that he feels queasy. I ask if he's gonna throw up because I'm ready to boot him out of the bed. I can't handle cleaning up another disaster. Luckily he made it through the night.
Alas, when I awoke Brian had plugged in the little potpourri pot again, and the smell of skunk is clearly still present. And even though it's freezing in here (which is stupid because it's still August) the windows shall remain open until the stank too has passed.

We Report...You Decide

*I want everyone to know that the blog that follows has been written with a grand twinkle in my eye. I LOVE the friends I shall refer to and think diversity in beliefs is a wonderful thing.*

I have two friends who I enjoy immensely. We do not see eye to eye on politics. Let's face it, we don't see eye to knee on politics.

I loves me some NPR.

They loves them some Rush Limbaugh.

That pretty much sums it up. I think that NPR is fair and balanced, they think it's left-wing liberal propaganda. They think Rush is a great truth teller, I think he's a hate-spreading nut job. And basically...I think I'm right.

So we're always on each other about the information we've received from our various news sources - battling it out over "Obamacare" or gun control or foreign policy...you name it. So this week I had an idea. I challenged Terry to listen to NPR for one week and I'd listen to Rush for a week. (*Inhale Sharply* What have I just done?) He did not think he could go for a week without listening to Rush. (Oh for crying out loud.) So I said, fine. We'll both listen to Rush from 12:00-2:00 and then we'll switch to NPR for "Talk of the Nation". A better idea anyway so that we're both listening to the same discussions. Felicia agreed to join us as well. My goal in this experiment is to get a better sense about where the other person is coming from rather than just having heated debates every time we're together.

Also, I'd like to convert them into NPR fans. There. I said it. It's not a totally altruistic experiment. I want to bring them over from the dark side.

So yesterday, listening to Rush, I learned what a "waitress sandwich" is (in reference to something Ted Kennedy once did in a restaurant with another man and a waitress). I also discovered that, technically, the health care plan being proposed by the Obama administration is not socialist. It's fascist.

And then I switched to NPR and breathed a huge sigh of relief.

Terry called me later to check in on the experiment. I listened to 1.5 hours of Rush. He listened to 20 minutes of NPR!!! He said he couldn't handle it. It was too boring. Hmmm...you mean boring because there aren't people ranting and raving - rather they are carrying on conversations in a rational and intelligent manner? Yeah. I guess I can see how that might be boring to some.

But the experiment continues. Currently it's eight minutes till Rush.

I can't wait to see what I learn today!