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I sometimes worry that I’m too much of a talker and not enough of a listener.
It’s because I probably am.
But that’s never the case when I visit my niece Paulette. In her company, all I do is listen.
Paulette is my dental hygienist.
Fortunately Paulette is a great story teller. And Friday afternoon at the office of Dr. Michael Bone, one of two places Paulette works, she had a great story to tell.
At first, however, I was afraid this latest story might … well … stink.
Not really. I’m just being a wise guy, not to mention a bad punster.
See, Paulette’s story was a about a skunk.
Paulette and her husband Kenny live in Kingston and she began her story by telling me this has been the “Summer of the Skunk” in her neighborhood.
“We’re a little afraid to go out and walk the dog after dark,” she said. “It’s not unusual to see two or three skunks at a time in our back yard.”
A plus side of the skunk infestation, she said, was that they seemed to have chased away a pretty pesky groundhog.
On the other hand, she quickly pointed out that she and Kenny will take a groundhog over an army of skunks any day.
Besides, they were starting to take a liking to this particular groundhog. Kenny even gave him a name – Ricky Nelson.
Still, Paulette’s heart went out to a skunk she saw a couple of weeks ago while driving to work.
He – or she, who knows? – crossed the street right in front of her car and Paulette hit the breaks and did a double take.
Did that poor creature really have some sort of jar stuck on its head, a la Winnie the Pooh?
It did!
And Paulette could see it was a peanut butter jar.
“It was all disoriented,” she said, “and I felt so sorry for it. Plus, I was afraid it would suffocate.”
As the bewildered skunk staggered around, Paulette sat debating whether to get out of the car and try to help.
After all, the poor creature was suffering.
But after all, the poor creature was still a skunk.
Reluctantly, she drove away.
At the office of Dr. Robert Conway, where she also works, she told the story and Dr. Conway suggested she call the Kingston Municipal Building. She did, prefacing her remarks with “this is going to sound silly, but it’s not some sort of prank.”
She was directed to call the Game Commission and again, she explained right up front she was not a kook.
To Paulette’s surprise, the person at the Game Commission was not surprised.
“We get all sorts of reports,” she said, adding that she’d put out an alert to be on the lookout for the distressed skunk.
While the women sounded sincere, Paulette was not optimist about the skunk’s chances of being rescued.
Days went by and with another captive audience in her chair – a regular patient named Colleen – Paulette began to tell her the skunk story.
“I know,” Colleen interrupted, adding, “That was my peanut butter jar.”
Colleen, who lives in Paulette’s neighborhood, said it was recycling day and she and her children watched from the house as the poor skunk stuck its head in the jar and then couldn’t get it off. “We felt terrible,” she said.
Paulette started to tell her about the call to the Game Commission, but Colleen interrupted again.
“Oh,” she said, “I took care of it.”
“You took care of it?” Paulette asked incredulously.
“Yes,” Colleen answered and then explained.
The skunk actually returned to the scene of the crime a day later, and Colleen spotted it.
Feeling responsible for what had transpired, she knew she had to take it upon herself to make this situation right.
So, with the aid of her children, she found a long – a very long – stick with a fork at the end.
And summoning all the courage she could and keeping as safe a distance as possible given the mission at hand, she managed to use the stick to help the skunk wriggle the jar from its head.
Yes, this is true.
Paulette was stunned.
“And then what happened?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” Colleen said, “we just ran like hell.”
The moral is, a Good Samaritan doesn’t hang around waiting to be thanked.
The good deed is thanks enough.
Especially when the grateful party is a skunk.