Picture this, you are in 9th grade, very shy and you would rather blend right in than be noticed. Your sister, Leslie, was quite the opposite. She was in 7th grade and more outgoing.

One weekend she invited a friend to spend the night. We thought it would be fun to sneak over to my friend Jane's house to watch Saturday Night Live together. We wrapped up in our thick robes, PJs and big warm slippers. Mind you, this was Hanover, NH in the dead of winter so it was snowy and cold. We tip toed home at 1am, sneaking through the back door to our mud room which lead into the house. Directly beside the house, near that back door was our outside trash shed. The floor of it was gravel, which didn't hold back many animals from crawling under the door to get to our trash. (Fantastic design)

We carefully locked the back door behind us and tiptoed to bed.
(That night, we unknowingly startled a skunk that was in our outside shed, that fell in our trash can and couldn't climb out. The skunk proceeded to spray for the rest of the night.)

We laughed that we didn't get caught sneaking back in the house and whispered "good night". My sister and her friend, Wendy headed upstairs. I had temporarily moved my bedroom in the basement and headed to the basement.

Typical for a 9th grader, the biggest worry I had was when a pimple would flare up and as luck would have it, probably Karma from sneaking out, I noticed a pimple had erupted on the tip of my nose! (Similar to Rudolph the red nose reindeer.) This had to be remedied fast, so it would be gone before school on Monday. I popped it, put Noxema on the area and covered with a bandaid. After I had my treatment under control, I literally fell into bed exhausted.

Super early, the next morning, I woke up to a funny smell and found my bandaid floating up and down with each breath. I thought, wow that bandaid smells awful, almost like oil. I removed the bandaid and realized the whole house had this heavy oil smell. I thought maybe there was a problem with the oil tank located in the basement or maybe I wasn't used to this smell considering I recently moved into the basement. Instead of worrying about the smell, I wrapped my face in my pillow to hide my eyes from the sun and my nose from the smell. Whatever that weird smell is, it would have to wait, afterall my beauty sleep was being disturbed.

Meanwhile my parents wake up and think each other has the most horrible morning breath ever. They had a strange conversation until my sister wakes up and stomps around the house yelling "WHAT IS THAT SMELL?"

My sister was never quiet so I rolled back over now covering my ears with the pillow thinking "what now?" Probably even yelling back "BE QUIET, I am trying to sleep".

Over the next hour, I toss and turn and am very annoyed at my sister for waking me up. Despite my best efforts to drown out the noise, I later discover that my dad went outside to locate and set the skunk free. He opens the shed door, takes a broom to knock the can over and runs in the house. They watch the skunk slowly leave our yard. At this point we are pretty certain the skunk was worn out and happy to be free!

My mom yells down to the basement, "Carrie, we have been skunked". I could not quite understand what she said but by the tone of her voice I knew it was something REALLY bad.

I rush upstairs to figure out what happened and what our plan is.
Our house has been sprayed by a skunk for about 5 or 6 hours and I need to remove this smell off of me before school tomorrow. I came up with a great idea: vacate the premises NOW! We had recently had a staycation at the new Holiday Inn with a Holidome (indoor pool). I really thought it was a fantastic idea, and we could have a great time! Unfortunately my parents laughed and said "you have got to be kidding?" At that point I realized my parents were absolutely clueless of the seriousness of this situation. Time for "Plan B".

What would any normal 9th grader do? LEAVE! I grabbed a bag of clothes, some frozen pizza from the freezer located in the mudroom and my coat. I stomped away to my neighbors house to seek refuge. The way I remember it, they were very accommodating and sympathetic. Maybe it was wishful thinking what choice did I give them?

I proceeded to totally take over one of their bathrooms, their washer and dryer, and wipe out their tomato juice supply. I washed myself in tomato juice about three times. I washed all my clothes several times until the smell was gone. When I no longer smelled it, and my friend no longer smelled it we gave the final test to the dogs. If they could still smell skunk I went back in the shower. It was terrible.

Late that afternoon I realized I needed my book bag which was located in the mud room. I went back to my house, rang the doorbell a dozen times and ran to a safe distance from the house when my parents answered the door. I walked about halfway down the driveway and yelled up to them. I could not risk the smell getting back on me. I was thinking by now they would come to their senses and book us a few rooms at the holiday Inn. Nope, they still were planning to make us go to school on Monday. Ugh!

I said "fine, I need my book bag." They laughed and tossed it towards me and it skidded down the driveway. I yelled "I am staying at Jane's house". They proceeded to laugh at my demands and to my surprise they were very angry that I left in the middle of a family crisis.

I took all my books and a couple cans of Lysol and laid them out in my friends large playroom and sprayed down everything. I continued using her dogs as the final sniff test.

That night I was safely at my neighbors and virtually void of all traces of skunk, and settling in for the night. We cooked the Ellios pizza and the smell of skunk started to move in my friends house!! We had to throw it out and send it down the garbage disposal.

Here is the shocking part, the pizza was in the extra freezer in the mud room and the skunk smell penetrated the freezer and wrecked our food! This also explains why my bookbag was the toughest project to eliminate the smell.

At this point I realize our house is even worse than I ever imagined and my parents were still clueless. The smell leaked inside the freezer which meant all the food had to be thrown out!

As I am enjoying skunk free nirvana at my neigbors, my parents may have discovered the FOOD ISSUE and they decided to take my sister out to eat dinner. They choose a popular spot in downtown Hanover called Peter Christians. They figured if they didn't smell the skunk anymore surely no one else would notice. Remember I told you they were clueless.

In this restaurant, that was inside a basement, you often were asked to wait in the cellar stairs 10-15 minutes. My parents were surprised to be given "star treatment" as they were seated very quickly, their dinner arrived at record speed. The manager even came over, comped their bill, and gently escorted them out the back entrance to exit. At that point my parents realized that MAYBE I was right about my assessment of the disaster at hand. They ended up reevaluating the situation as now my sister was no longer was laughing with them, she was catching on to the crisis that I was screaming about.

The next day they let my sister stay home from school and called a fumigation company to remove the smell. They ended up fumigating the house several times! It was the dead of winter and you couldn't open all the windows open for long either. I had no clue until later my sister got to stay home, and that sending me to school was my punishment for abandoning the family.

I remember that Monday, asking my classmate, Jay for his families reaction when they picked up his sister, Wendy from our house. He said "OMG, we made her ride in the way back of my mom's station wagon literally with the dogs and had to roll the windows down as we drove her home.

I also remember that same day I was walking to my locker anxious to unload my bookbag and someone saying "ewww I smell skunk". I kept real quiet and never revealed it was me. It was a common thing in our area for someone to get "skunked" and I was never sure if anyone figured out the smell was from me. I want to remember they didn't know! (It makes for a better story).

Later that year we would open drawers of summer clothes and would find that smell again. My mom would clean her silver and it would come back. That one skunk did a LOT of damage from that one night!

At an early age I realized that I can sniff out a disaster head on and plan accordingly. I also realize that not everyone is onboard with my plans. My parents still tend to think I over-react BUT I have many stories to counteract their theory. Maybe one day they will listen to me, but I seriously doubt it!!