Making Friends with Mother Nature

I went out on Wednesday night to meet up with an old roommate and some of her friends to a place in Nob Hill. I haven’t seen her in AGES, so that was great. Hanging out with her definitely puts me in such a good mood. It’s crazy. It was good to see her though… we’ll have to throw more cooking parties together.

Anyway, the most interesting part of the night happened on the way home:

I managed to catch the last possible outbound train and I got off the subway at Forest Hill Station. From there it’s roughly a 1.5 mile walk to my house (since the buses were no longer running). About half of that is on a two-lane road that has a sidewalk on only one side. Next to the side walk is a 20 foot tall concrete wall. On the other side of the street is a small lake (but no sidewalk).

I walk out of the subway station and immediately smell a rancid smell that I haven’t smelled in years! It’s a damn skunk! I laugh and feel sorry for the poor soul who was nailed. I start to walk home and hit the beginning of the concrete wall. Up ahead I see a little furball scurring along the sidewalk.

“Hey look! A raccoon! How cute!” I think to myself. But upon closer inspection (and when I got too close, the bastard stood up on his front feet!!!!) I realized that it wasn’t in fact a raccoon. It was a skunk!!!

So I started talking to him and making some noise and he scurried along… towards the FAR end of the wall! Uggghhh! This was going to be a long walk.

Every time a car came, he stopped, since he was scared. And he wouldn’t cross the street (smart move actually), he just stayed on the sidewalk. If I got too close, he would stand on his front legs with his tail in the air… threatening to spray me!

At one point, after a car came, he started running back towards me! I panicked and started yelling at him, clapping my hands and making all sorts of noise. Finally he turned around and continued scurring along.

Eventually (thankfully it only took 15 minutes), we got to the end and he scurried into some bushes, never to be seen again. I was able to continue the last half of the journey home.

Crazy!

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