My house was skunked early Monday morning. The wretched smell woke my three roommates and I shortly after midnight, right around the time one of my roommates drug her sleepy self into my room mumbling: “it smells awful in here”. She climbed into bed with me as I shoved the corner of my comforter up my nostrils in an attempt to block my nasal passage from the vile smell, comparable to rotten eggs, burning rubber and garlic. According to her, I sat then up in a fit of rage and yelled obscenities at the smell and repulsive animal that was responsible.

Did the skunk spray the house in passing? Was it stuck in the wall? Under the house? Will it begin decaying? These questions floated around my head till the four of us finally got out of bed – angry monsters with pounding headaches who smelled like stale skunk. I woke up without time to shower and headed straight to work, where I kept catching whiffs of skunk and apologized profusely for stinking up my boss’ office.

I made a few phone calls to our realtor and the city of Abilene and both replied with: “we don’t deal with things like that.” However, the city offered to put me on a wait list for a skunk trap I’d have to assemble myself. Not to worry, though, they’d send someone to collect the body. My roommates and I figured we were on our own.

Two trips to Wal Mart, thousands of candles, oil lamps and two bottles of distilled vinegar later, the house still reeked. Wikipedia told us spraying vinegar on every surface would break down the oil-based scent the skunk releases from two glands surrounding the anus. This description made the house smell even worse. After following Wiki-directions, our house smelled like an old, sour candle shop with a hint of skunk. We resorted to our next option; turn off the heater, open the windows and turn on every fan in the house the night before Abilene was slammed with 4.5 inches of snow.

At this point, we may as well have raised the roof off our house, stolen a high-power fan from some local photo shoot and blasted it in every direction – the smell would still be there. Sure, it was a bit weaker, but by this point the smell had soaked into every fiber of the house and the oil began seeping into our skin. We were used to any remaining odor, numb to anything that smelled good and we were cold and grumpy.

We realized all we could do was wait – something most of us have trouble doing. We were exhausted, out of money and we had to let it go. As pungent as the stench was and as much as we wished for a miracle spray to free us from anal-spray induced headaches, we just had to wait. The smell couldn’t last forever.

Sometimes our situations are less than ideal but we have to realize when to give up and learn to laugh about our misfortunes. I apologize if I offended anyone on campus with my rank scent, but we didn’t ask the skunk to spray our house. We did, however, handle the situation wonderfully and I applaud my wonderful roommates for undergoing the struggle with me.

Bear the smell, endure the struggle, suck it up and know that it’ll air out eventually.