A holiday story about chaos, preparedness, and unintended consequences
By the time Christmas weekend settles into that quiet exhale, you think you’re safe.
The gifts are opened. The wrapping paper is gone. The house is calm in that rare way it only gets between holidays and real life. Monday is coming, but it hasn’t arrived yet. You’re mentally barefoot.
That’s when it happens.
Around 10:00 p.m., Mandy took our dog Riley out back to do what dogs do before bed. We live in Florida, which means our backyard is less a yard and more a rotating wildlife exhibit. Possums. Raccoons. Rabbits. Things with glowing eyes that stare back at you like you’ve interrupted something ancient.
Riley, our sweet senior rescue and undisputed princess of the house, has seen it all before. Or so we thought.
In the dark, about twenty feet away, Riley spotted what she believed was just another fuzzy friend. Possibly a rabbit. Possibly something she could chase for sport and dignity.
Before Mandy could fully focus, before reason or caution could catch up, before the Ring camera fully caught the scene, Riley took off like a missile.
All I heard from inside the house was a scream, followed immediately by Mandy yelling, “Riley NO!!!!!”
There are certain tones that don’t require explanation. This was one of them.
Mandy ran after Riley and, in that brief sprint, processed what Riley had not. This was not a rabbit. This was not a raccoon. This was not even a confused possum.
This was a large, black, very furry creature with a bright white racing stripe down its tail.
The skunk, now understandably offended, did not hesitate.
Tail up.
Defense deployed.
What followed can only be described as a chemical attack from the depths of hell.
The screaming escalated. I am confident our neighbors thought someone had been stabbed or electrocuted. By the time I reached the back door, both Mandy and Riley were already limping inside, trailing a smell so aggressive it felt alive.
If you’ve never smelled skunk at close range, allow me to clarify something. This is not “bad.” This is not “strong.” This is an existential experience. It punches you in the sinuses and questions your life choices.
There was a strip-tease level disrobing in the living room. Clothes hit the floor. Towels appeared out of nowhere. Riley was panicking and running from room to room with unfortunate jumps onto our bed, couches, and 3-week-old carpet in our master bedroom. Mandy’s eyes were bloodshot, swollen, and watering. She had taken a direct blast.
The carpet absorbed things I will never fully forgive it for. Let’s remember for the future that Scotch Guard is for spills, not odors…
We rushed both of them into the shower, beginning a process I can only describe as frantic improvisation. Water. Soap. More water. More panic. None of it helped much.
Mandy, through burning eyes and gagging breaths, insisted we take Riley to the emergency vet. It was a holiday weekend, which meant two things.
One, she was right despite my thoughts on the matter.
Two, I briefly contemplated what a second mortgage might look like.
We loaded Riley into “Mandy’s” car. Windows down. Air blasting. The scent followed us like a curse. Thirty minutes later, we arrived at the emergency vet, leaving what I can only assume was a detectable trail across the county. I was prepared for the police to pull us over for speeding the entire way, and for them to say, “Never mind, go ahead on your way,” when the scent hit them.
The vet took one look, smelled one breath, and told us there was nothing they could do. No miracle cure. No magic rinse. Just time, saline for the eyes, and repeated bathing.
We were unprepared.
Worse, we learned something deeply unsettling together. There are no longer any 24-hour stores in our area. Wal-Mart, Publix, Walgreens, and CVS close at 11 pm.
So there we were, at midnight, after a one-and-a-half-hour joyride, with a skunk-coated dog and wife, no supplies, and nowhere to buy them.
I set up a 6:00 a.m. Walmart delivery like a man ordering disaster relief. Hydrogen peroxide. Baking soda. Dawn dish soap. Every article on the internet suddenly agreed this slurry was our only hope.
At 6:30 a.m., salvation arrived.
What followed were bath after bath after bath. Riley endured it like a champ. Laundry ran nonstop. Towels soaked. The car was deodorized. The house was aired out. Sleep was optional.
Two days later, I would not have invited a stranger into our home without a warning. But things improved. Riley is about 90 percent skunk-free. A few more baths and she’ll be herself again.
Mandy smells great again too, thankfully.
We lost a pair of pajamas, several towels, and a bit of sleep. But everyone is okay.
I want to publicly thank my wife for taking one for the team and, quite literally, saving our princess from a worse outcome. I also want to formally apologize for suggesting, entirely in jest, that she sleep on the lanai that night.
Now, because this is how my brain works, somewhere between bath number four and load of laundry number seven, I realized something.
This is exactly how business emergencies happen.
Everything is calm. You think you’re safe. You assume you’ve seen it all. And then something you didn’t plan for explodes in your face. Literally, sometimes.
Most problems aren’t catastrophic because of the event itself. They’re catastrophic because you weren’t prepared, didn’t have the right supplies, or waited too long to react.
In business, the skunk is the unplanned risk you thought you could handle. The late tax notice. The employee who quits without warning. The system that fails at the worst possible moment. The assumption that “this won’t happen to us.”
And just like skunk spray, once it hits, there’s no quick fix. You manage it. You clean it up. You do the work. You learn the lesson.
Preparation matters. Response matters more. And sometimes, even when you do everything right, you still end up smelling like the problem for a while.
The important thing is that you recover.
We did.
And next Christmas, we’ll be a little more cautious when letting the dog out at night.
Just in case.
Ryan Gartrell
Writer and operator. I help fix problems. Sometimes before they spray.
