A Skunk in a Limousine Usually Ends Badly

By Mike Sherack

Sven and Ole, simpletons extraordinaire from the Upper Midwest, are back with more stories and tall tales. As in How Not to Haul Your Canoe, they prove that things tend to go wrong when you combine faulty logic with a dangerous lack of common sense. The world is a difficult place when you ignore the dangers of thin ice, lead a funeral procession to a landfill, or get outsmarted by the clock on your stove. Add in things like skunks, snakes, and high voltage, and trouble is never far away.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Sherack
• Release date: Aug 7, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223994657

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A Skunk in a Limousine Usually Ends Badly

Mike Sherack

Published by Mike Sherack, 2023.

This is a work of fiction. Similarities to real people, places, or events are entirely coincidental.

A SKUNK IN A LIMOUSINE USUALLY ENDS BADLY

First edition. August 7, 2023.

Copyright © 2023 Mike Sherack.

Written by Mike Sherack.

For my late father, Jim Sherack, who often came home from work with a joke, many of which were about two guys named Sven and Ole.

A SKUNK IN A LIMOUSINE USUALLY ENDS BADLY

(MORE SVEN & OLE STORIES)

Copyright © 2023 by Mike Sherack. All rights reserved.

Cover Design Stewart A. Williams

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.

Acknowledgement

I appreciate Jeff Katz for being not just a hunting buddy (and golfing buddy), but a funny hunting buddy and true friend. Whether it’s his archery knowledge, his ability to fix and rig all manner of things, or his big personality and sense of humor, jokes and laughter are never far away when Jeff is around. Humor lurks whether I’m watching him assemble a complicated, uncooperative tent in the dark, he’s digging an arrow out of a tree when he missed the target, or he’s explaining the mechanics of a special hand saw while advising me on how long to grill bratwursts. He knows too much about the engineering of golf clubs and how different kinds of bowling balls respond to more or less oil on the lanes. (He has had multiple perfect bowling games of 300, as well as scores of 299, but I don’t want to note how many in case he got another one today.) I find it easy to come up with new material when I’m with Jeff, some material comes from him, and it’s not often that you get quality bowling tips while archery hunting. He’s a renaissance man who’s part MacGyver but a lot funnier. And he tolerates me.

Introduction

This book’s title was originally about a skunk getting inside a limousine, then it was going to be about missing a turn and accidentally leading a funeral procession to the landfill. Then it was going to be about ice fishing when new ice may be too thin to be safe. Then it came back full circle to the skunk-limousine story. All are prime Sven and Ole material.

Funerals are something we do to honor and say farewell to the dead as they leave our world, and it’s a time to console their family and friends. It’s also interesting what funerals mean for the attendees still living. If you’re sad you may not feel hungry, but after funerals what do people often do? They eat. Sometimes they also drink, which makes more sense. Both help people move on from a somber event in memory of someone they cared about, and being sad is one step up from being hungry and sad. Besides helping with the grieving process, funerals also dredge up good memories and the highlights of a person’s life. Funerals also are a way to see people. This social component seems more and more important given life increasingly seems overscheduled. People also are more and more scattered across geography and myriad activities. Yet now with the pandemic we attend funerals virtually, and in general we spend too much time connecting over screens. So going to a funeral or memorial service does means something.

Other aspects of funerals are interesting as well. Like how pallbearers tend to be older and frequently have bad backs, and at many churches they need to navigate narrow, steep stairs with large, well-built caskets that look heavy. Some of the caskets look capable of space travel. It’s surprising there aren’t more funeral injuries just getting overbuilt caskets into and out of churches. As a young adult I was once summoned by a relative to go help the pallbearers when they were struggling with the casket at the cemetery. A funeral is emotional enough without needing to call an ambulance for a pallbearer injury. So one should consider the weight of the casket and the strength and vitality of the pallbearers, and consider making some people honorary pallbearers if they aren’t spry and you’ve got a heavier casket and/or the deceased was a large person. Perhaps it should be like the question about whether you can lift enough to sit in the exit row on an airplane. The trend of fewer casket burials and more cremated ash containers makes transportation of the dead much easier and safer. Even if chiropractors and back surgeons don’t fully support this shift in burial practices, they have plenty of business already.

Funerals are also interesting when a procession goes to a cemetery for a burial. In Minnesota the weather can be poor for these events, or at least chilly, unless they occur from late June through early September on days without rain. Occasionally a priest or pastor accidentally falls into the burial hole - talk about a memorable service. And sometimes there is someone hanging out nearby in the cemetery with a backhoe to finish the job of burying the casket once people leave. I recall a rural Minnesota neighbor who did this work, and occasionally he would drive a backhoe home during the day, perhaps after a late morning or midday burial ceremony. He would drive the backhoe right through the neighborhood. Once I saw him bring home a bag of groceries in the front loader bucket, presumably after he stopped at the Red Owl on the way home.

Instead of a traditional burial, a much more dramatic funeral option is to send the deceased out into a body of water, in a boat full of flammables, and watch it burn and sink - the so-called Viking funeral. In the Viking era this was done for the likes of great warriors and royalty; common folk were typically disposed of with funeral pyres or ground burials. While today’s laws prohibit, or should prohibit, burning a boat with a dead person aboard, in some states you may be able to do this with cremated ashes. For sure check state law, but it could be the kind of thing where there are no laws against it. I also wouldn’t plan to shoot a flaming arrow into such a boat from shore to ignite it. You don’t need to be that authentic nowadays when you can use a match or lighter to rig a candle or small flame to spread as the boat makes its way out into deeper water. It’s similar to setting off fireworks, so you wouldn’t have trouble finding someone - in all likelihood a male - to manage this duty if you’re planning such a funeral. You can buy small Viking funeral boats, about three feet long, online. So for those who identify with Viking traditions, it’s an option to think about when updating one’s will.

In the funeral procession chapter there is a picture of a road sign in northwest Boise that I go by all the time. I’m sure it has kept a few landfill-bound vehicles from ending up at the cemetery. The two places have similar purposes albeit very different things get buried at them. And when you’re driving along and briefly see both destinations on one sign, it can take a moment for your brain to orient the two places with their correct directions. You have to process two things and so it’s not foolproof.

Recently I had to take some landscaping debris to that landfill for my mother, and while I was unloading it a swarm of seagulls were flying all around. It wasn’t ominous like a horror or disaster movie, but the sky above was definitely busy. Then when I was leaving the unloading area, to drive to the scales to weigh back out, I saw a bald eagle flying up a landfill slope and land. The garbage-eating bird looked as majestic as any other of its species, but I concluded it wasn’t the proudest bald eagle that’s ever lived. And does the sighting mean we should consider the landfill critical eagle habitat under the Endangered Species Act?

Regarding the title story about a skunk and a limousine, I think skunks get a bad rap. When I’m out hiking in the spring, skunks are becoming active and I see them frequently. They usually run off, or if they get defensive I can talk to them calmly and they lower their tails. But it’s always alarming when I encounter one at close range, especially if I’m walking out of the hills in the dark and my headlamp suddenly picks up a skunk’s rear end pointed at me with tail raised (in skunk lingo this is loaded with the safety off).

The Idaho skunk in the pictures below raised its tail one April afternoon when I got too close to pick up a shed elk antler near where it was foraging on a mountain ridge. (The first picture also shows a bull elk, sans antlers, down the ridge that hasn’t seen me yet.) After I stopped and talked calmly to the skunk, it lowered its tail and ambled off so I could advance the final few steps to pick up the antler and go a different direction.

Skunks are laid-back critters, unless I have a dog with me that rushes or follows them. I’ve had to de-skunk dogs twice. The first time, I had a new truck and it was a little hard to put that pup in the back seat. Fortunately, the day before I had taken the young German shepherd to the vet for shots and happened to ask what to do if a dog gets sprayed. So on the way home with stinky pup the next evening I knew I needed to mix up hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and a little dish detergent. The second time the much older German shepherd got sprayed, it was mainly the fault of the other large dog I had with me. When I saw the skunk walking with tail raised, the dogs were curiously following from a couple feet away, then they disappeared behind rocks and I had little doubt about what would happen next. Both dogs paid the price, but again luck was on my side as I actually was planning to stop at a dog wash place on the way home that very night to bathe both dogs. So I took them home first and made a mess of a bathroom deodorizing them, then took them to the dog wash for a regular bath. All’s well that ends well, and I know the day may come when I need to de-skunk myself.

I’ve always loved ice fishing. It’s something you can do in the dead of winter, you aren’t tied to a boat, and you don’t need to worry about whitecaps. You can play catch with a football or frisbee while you watch your fishing rod or bobber. It’s easy to keep beer cold, the fishing can be good, and if you don’t catch anything it’s less important. Often it’s bitterly cold, but come