So If Not a Dog, How About a Skunk?

I'm afraid I will have to put to rest my desire to adopt a pooch, at least for the time being. I'm moving into my new apartment tonight, and a canine pal wasn't included in the lease.

But there is another option. When I went walking past my soon-to-be new apartment, I saw what appeared to be a cat rolling around on the sidewalk. Noting that something didn't seem quite right, I stopped for a moment until I realized that what I was actually watching was a skunk waddling away.

Upon recognizing it for what it was, my immediate thought was "Cool a skunk! Let's chase it." Fortunately that impulse was immediately squashed by the logic portion of my brain that quickly ran through the following fallacies with my plan:

1. If you chase a skunk, you will get sprayed.
2. You cannot remove the smell of skunk from your clothes, and I liked my current outfit.
3. Having never being sprayed before, I wasn't sure if and for how long the smell sticks to your skin.
   
4. Consider the embarrassment of having to call in "smelly" to work? "I can't come in to work today.......Oh no, I'm feeling fine. It's just that I was sprayed by a skunk last night.... Yeah right in front of my house.........It jumped out of nowhere......tomato juice? I'll have to give that a try........could you do me a favor and not mention this to my coworker?........Oh, I'm on speaker phone.......

All the way around, it was a good thing that I didn't chase the critter.

As I waited for it to meander its way under the shrubbery by the front stoop of my soon-to-be apartment, an idea crossed my mind. It may not be a dog, but if this stinker lives in or under my house, I could call it my pet. I sure ain't going to play fetch with it, but if I see it again, I'm going to start calling it my guard dog and name him "Socks." ;o)