Today as I rode my bike up the slushy gravel road amid the forest noises of melting snow, what did I see about 15 yards ahead, in my tire track, waddling towards me, unphased in the least by my presence, but a skunk.
I’d almost had a run-in with a skunk once before, back when we lived in town and I barely noticed it in the dark of the morning as I pushed my bike up the driveway. But this was the middle of the afternoon. Was it rabid?
I couldn’t simply move to the left tire track; that wouldn’t have given me much room to sneak past it. I couldn’t jump off the road a ways just to let it pass; the drop to the stream on the left and the steep bank on the right had me penned. I climbed off my bike and walked back down the road a few yards.
The skunk kept right on approaching.
This wouldn’t do, I decided. I wasn’t going to reroute myself, which would have added a long time to my ride, time I didn’t have because I wanted to get home to spot the damage the neighbor’s escaped cows were wreaking on our yard. In deep thought I looked down at the ground, where I found inspiration: snow balls.
One after the other I threw, most of which scattered around the stinky varmint, who raised its tail and squeaked a couple times and kept walking towards me. I persisted, however, and soon enough it moseyed up the steep bank and I continued home.
