Disgruntled Skunks
 

I have noticed while driving recently, that the number of dead skunks piling up on our roadways far exceeds the road kill from all other critters combined.

 I have a theory: It must stink to be a skunk.

 Take a moment and imagine you are a typical little rural-type skunk.
(For some of you, that may not be a stretch.)

#1 Life is meaningless

Your day is consumed by foraging for grubs or some unappealing bug of that nature. “Quality of Life” is not a term you are familiar with and “terminology”, in general is non-existent because your wee skunk brain cannot comprehend such things as a vocabulary.  If someone gave you a home entertainment system you couldn’t even turn it on because you are dumb.

#2 No one likes you

All manner of creatures possessing an olfactory gland find you repugnant and vile and will do almost anything to avoid being in your vicinity.

#3 You stink, BAD

Your smell is repulsive even to yourself. You have to stay upwind from your stench from dawn to dusk. Even your refuge of sleep is deluged by the constant emission of your on-board stink sack.  There is no escape from the invisible torment emanating from the nether region near your hostile buttocks.

#4 You have no friends

Rabbits, foxes, squirrels and even the carrion-eating opossum frequently omit you from dinner party and baby shower invitation lists.

 #5 Your loved ones smell too

It’s hard to mate when trying to avoid gagging.

#6 Your butt is a weapon

How often have you tried to make friends and entertain other woodland critters with a handstand only to have your sack go off and blind a trusting captive audience of turtles or an innocent by-standing snail?

And so it seems to make sense. 
All this skunkicide has an air of sad justification. Why did God make skunks stink?  Well, of course it’s for defensive purposes but what was wrong with quills or fangs or claws or venom or even a handy dandy shell?  I smell a mistake of nature or possibly a cruel joke, and I fear our furry friends have finally caught on.  I see them on the road each morning, the weary pilgrims who have bravely faced the onslaught of death by rubber.  And then there are those who lie in wait in the grass, waiting for their turn to scamper before the unflinching tires to become yet another country speed bump. 

It’s kind of sad when you think about it.  Better them than me, I guess.