Now THAT'S a touchy situation

Mildred and Thomas "Widetrack" Rayborn of Buffalo, who had the Conoco service station on Highway 75 until 1982, found themselves in a situation NOBODY wants to deal with last week when a full-grown skunk ended up in their home at 619 Houck St.

The Rayborns have a Dalmatian mix, Panda, who usually stays in the house, and of course she has to be let out in the yard before bedtime. The Rayborns' storm door hinge has become a little stubborn lately and hangs open, so they had gotten into the routine of leaving the main door ajar a bit until Panda had finished her business and came back inside.

One night last week, about 11:00 at night, Tom let Panda out and was watching TV. About 11:30 until he thought he heard the dog back inside, nibbling at her feed bowl. Glancing over, he saw instead a most unwelcome guest dining at the dog's bowl. What to do... what to do..?

Mildred, who is wheelchair bound, was already in bed, so Thomas shut the door to her room and all other areas that could be cut off, opened wide the front door and began to try to cajole the skunk to take his leave. The trick, of course, was to do so without...upsetting the critter.

"Shoo...shoo" didn't work. Rayborn got a stick a couple of feet long and tried to gently "ease" the skunk in the desired direction. No luck. Spraying the stick with pine oil made it a little more effective as a prodding tool, but the skunk only took up a new defensive position behind the stove. Rayborn pulled out the stove but his new houseguest showed no signs of moving on. He next tried using a leaf flower to BLOW it out. The noisy machine only motivated the polecat to seek a safer spot -- under the refrigerator! Finally, Widetrack reasoned that wild animals don't like smoke, so there was nothing left to do but smoke him out. He set a rag on fire in a pie plate, then snuffed it out and got a pretty good cloud of smoke working in the kitchen. Laying down on the floor he blew the smoke under the 'fridge. That proved to be the winning strategy, and the skunk finally came out. Rayborn slide a piece of trim behind him so he couldn't back up, and kept tapping the animal along. "He finally saw the front door open and wobbled on out," he recalls with a victorious tone. The kitchen clock read about 4:20 a.m.

As he watched the critter climb off the porch, Widetrack was heard to say, "You booger -- I ought to shoot you, but since you didn't spray my house, I'll give you a reprieve!"

Indeed, the skunk had not left a drop of scent in the house. "We'd be cooked good if it sprayed," Mildred shared. "It wasn't funny at the time -- it was a serious situation, but we've gotten a lot of laughs over it since." Proving her sense of humor is still intact, she concluded, "It doesn't take much to make old people laugh!"

"The Good Lord takes care of fools, idiots and little children," Thomas Rayborn philosophizes. "He sure took care of us that night!" And if the door hangs now, you can bet they pull it to.