We had one such conversation while caravanning to our family reunion. As we were driving through a very small Southern Utah town in the dark of night, we came upon a skunk in the road that was, of course, run over and dead. Now I have passed many a dead skunk in my life, and I know that the smell is one of the most unpleasant, but I would gladly repeat passing any other skunk that I have ever passed in order to have avoided this most wretched smell. We had no sooner passed this animal of putrescence than my dad called from the car in front of us. While D was rolling down the windows (or rather pressing down--no one rolls the windows down anymore) to allow the smell that had entered through the air conditioning vents to escape, I answered my cell phone. I did not answer with "hello" however. I answered with "Can you taste it too?" My dad proceeded to tell me that the smell was so bad that he was sure he had to have run over a stink gland and popped it into his car. I replied that it was so bad in our car that I had resorted to drinking warm milk from Fuss' sippy cup just to get the taste out of my mouth. Yes, it was so bad that I could taste the skunk, and having now tasted a skunk I can assure you that I will never eat one, even if my life depends on it! Our conversation ended there after losing cell phone reception, and we all continued on our way.
About 90 minutes later we arrived at our cabins, and the skunk conversation continued, as if no time had passed at all. It started with my mom asking those that had been in the cars front of us (D and I had been the back of the caravan with my parents directly in front of us) if they too had smelled the skunk. KM and her husband, who had been the first in line, had not smelled it. Right after mentioning that it had not been smelled by them, Fluff walked through the door (almost as if on cue) and announced that as he bent down to pick up a bag he found that he could still smell the wretched skunk on his tires. This began the great debate of 2008...Who ran over the skunk and how long had it been there? My mom was certain that the skunk had to have been there for a least a few hours if not days. The rest of us were certain that KM and Whitey had run over it, otherwise they would have smelled (and tasted) it as the rest of us had. My mom's response was that since they were in a truck that was much higher than the other vehicles it was possible for them to pass right over it without notice. D responded that the size of the vehicle wouldn't matter because they still had the air conditioner on, and the vents would have pulled the smell into their truck. The thought was proposed that maybe the poor skunk was hit by the trailer hauling all the 4-wheelers, which would have allowed KM and Whitey's truck to have passed before the skunk was killed. While the majority of us thought that this was the most likely scenario, no one would volunteer to go smell any of the tires to prove it, even though we knew that the smell would still be remaining there thanks to Fluff's experience. My dad was still certain that no matter who initially hit it, he had to have hit a stink gland. Fluff was certain that he must have too. All D and I knew was that whenever the poor skunk was taken from life, we were the recipients of his ultimately and smelly deceasedness. The debate continued for several minutes before Whitey announced that truly we would never know. However, the next morning I did ask my grandparents, who had arrived from the same path we had taken only several hours earlier, if at any time during their trek they had smelled or even seen a skunk in the road. My grandpa assured us that they had not. Therefore, I stick by the thought that Whitey ran over it with the 4-wheeler trailer in an attempt to torture the rest of us with the smell.
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