Ostensibly a skunk, or some angry skunk ghost spirit, got into the house two days ago while I was spending the weekend at Wai’s.  The increasingly intense smell which my Dad described as “burnt rubber” prompted him to go on an in house skunk hunting adventure in the middle of the night.

After finding nothing, the next day him and Jon tore up the basement trying to figure out where the skunk actually was.  His plan was to air out the house, and then locate the skunk based on the leftover smell.  I wasn’t here for this, but as I was being told this story I was hoping with all my heart that they found the skunk and it sprayed one of them in the face and attacked the other.

But they didn’t find it, and after some cursory internet searching my Dad learned that skunks are nocturnal.  So at 5 past the witching hour that night he went outside in his robe, with a brick, and a flashlight.  I guess he had the brick just to plug up the skunk’s burrow, but I’m sure he would have chucked the brick or at least postured with it as a weapon if he saw the skunk.

Anyway, he found a burrow under our front stairs, but instead of a skunk there was a possum, which did what possums do… and just stared at him.  He stared back, and after about a minute of the two staring at each other my Dad went back into the house to do more research on the internet about possums.

Wikipedia says they’re pretty harmless, and he guesses that the possum got sprayed by the skunk and stunk up our house by proximity.  They don’t fight cats or dogs or eat wood or anything.

So now we have a new pet possum who lives by our front doorsteps.