Skunk, Sidney... Skunk!!!

There was a funny story on the news here today. Apparently, a young man left his car door unlocked with a day-old peanut butter sandwich on the passenger seat. During the night, a bear opened the car door (yes, those ornery boogers can do that!) and hopped in. While rummaging around for his tasty treat, his big ol' bear butt nudged the car into neutral, and away he went down the hill in a Toyota! On the way down, a tree slammed the door shut, trapping a now angry bear inside. He tore the heck out of the interior and, with the other damage, the car's a total loss. Division of Wildlife officers were able to open the door and Mr. Bear hightailed it out of there!

I've lived here for 35 years and have never seen a bear. Mr. V and I worked together for a year at a 4200 acre ranch down in southwestern Colorado. We always told the guests not to leave food in their cars beacuse of the bears. Apparently, the fellow from Texas thought that warning didn't include his brand new, twin seat ATV. A bear trashed his seats trying to get to a bag of potato chips. We told him how sorry we were but he said, "Are you nuts? I can't wait to tell the boys back home about this!" His wife rolled her eyes. At least two or three times a week Mr. Virgo would ask me if I saw this big, black bear on the road up to the guest house but I never did. I probably would have caught sight of one of these bruins if I rode into work with him, but Mr. V gets up at the butt-crack of dawn and I'm a princess!

When I was married to husband #2, we had the most wonderful black lab named Sidney. One summer morning, Sidney got sprayed by a skunk. He was so mortified and #2 was none too pleased either. As he bathed Sid, he kept saying, "Ewwww...skunk, Sidney...skunk!" A few weeks later, #2 and Sidney were out for a run on Red Mountain. Suddenly, the dog stopped dead in his tracks and popped his head up. #2 looked up and there was a huge bear standing on the trail ahead. Sidney took off after the bear like a bat out of you-know-where. #2 yelled the only thing he could think of. "SKUNK, SIDNEY...SKUNK!!!" That poor dog put his tail between his legs and flew past #2 like his hind end was on fire! I guess he thought if that one little skunk made him stink so bad, this one was gonna be awful!

Be good to each other!

Ginny