So...
I'm awakened at zero dark thirty by the unmistakable stench of pole cat, or skunk, for the more refined. The effect is like breaking an ammonia capsule under my nose. I am awake. Fcuk.
My cat is walking around the bedroom leaving a vapor trail that all but glows in the moonlight shining thru the bedroom window. Fcuk.
I hear a crash downstairs that I should not be hearing. Fcuk.
Downstairs I go. The whole first floor is smelling like rural route road kill. Fcuk.
At this point, I do what any red blooded American would do; I get on the computer and post about it on an obscure corvette discussion forum. Then I grab a cup of joe, one of several firearms I keep about, and head to the basement.
About halfway down the stairway, I break through a thermal layer that is trying to keep a lid on the nauseating smell. Holy fcuk this stinks.
As I'm searching thru my unfinished basement which serves as a storage area for everything that we don't want and should have gotten rid of a decade or more ago, I hear something rattling the pet door. I quickly look over and observe something poking its head thru the door. It's not one of our numerous four legged pets. It's not a skunk, although there can be no doubt that this interloper is only one in a long line of trespassers this night.
We lock eyes. He blinks and scurries away. Smart move, fcuker.
I barricade the pet door wild-west style with a steamer trunk. Soon I hear the tap, tap, tap of something trying to come thru the door. I look thru the door's window and see two raccoons expressing their frustration with not being able to come into the basement...a place they've obviously been to before this night. I really want to dispatch these fckers, but I don't want my wife to soil herself in bed at the sound of a .45 going off at zero dark forty-five.
I shoot them anyway. With my cellphone camera.
So the pet door is going to go the way of the dodo bird today. I've got to give my cat a tomato juice bath and clean up the mess in the basement. Yeah, that's what I was planning to do this Friday.
I suppose it's too early for beer.
Fcuk.