That Little Stinker!

Confession Is Good For the Soul...NOT.

(Rated E for everyone!)

Ok, I am not sure how to start this story, it was not my normal "one night while on patrol" type of story. It was actually one Saturday while at work on the afternoon shift a hundred years ago. Yes, I was a Rookie. The low man on the totem pole, the peon, you get the picture. And it is never fun being that person. Saturdays were pretty slow, none of the brass was there so the station is always a lot more fun. I always liked working the weekends, more quiet, more relaxed and a whole lot more fun. One not so fun duties of a police officer though was to assist the animal control people. I don't like that part. We had to go out and removed injured or dead animals from the road, I hate that. I don't want to touch a dead animal. I don't want to touch an injured animal, it might bite me. I don't like dogs (except for mine) for I am scared to death of them. I worked for a vet in college and have been bitten more times than I care to count. I don't like it. So helping animal control is NOT one of my favorite thing to do.

This Saturday I am called to the station by the sergeant and told to come get the .410 shotgun to kill a skunk. I went to the station and told the sergeant to please ask someone else to do it. He said I am not asking, I am telling you to get the shotgun and go shoot the skunk. I said why? He did not do anything to me and I am against killing this animal just because. He said are you refusing to do it? You better think about that. Well I knew a threat when I heard one, I am not totally stupid, and I might be a little bit of a slow learner, but I knew better than to refuse to do this. So I said no I am not refusing and went to get the shotgun. I drove out to the animal shelter to meet up with the guy. We go out to his truck and he tells me there is a skunk in the cage and when he opens the trap door I am suppose to shoot it. I tell him, I don't like this. What if the skunk sprays me? I will stink and I just don't see any sense in this. Now I do understand that skunks carry rabies. I have horses, I know about this stuff and skunks are not generally good animals. But I just don't like killing something for no real reason. He tells me to wait till the skunk gets a few feet away from the cage and then shoot it.

Well I decide I guess I better get this over with. I load the shotgun with the five shotgun shells they gave me. I am told I should be able to kill it with a couple shots. The guy takes the skunk out to the middle of this field like area, removes the tarp/covering thing from off the cage, and raises the door. Of course he is hoping that I wait for him to get out of the way before I start blasting the little devil, and for the sake of paper work I do. In fact I feel I need to wait till the guy gets completely out of the way. Like back to the office far as I am concerned. He tells me to go ahead and shoot it. The skunk has come out of the cage and is just out by a few feet sitting there. Shoot it now he tells me. So I shoot, hit right behind it. I see the dirt fly and I see a scared little skunk take off for the woods. He yells at me, you better shoot him again, I think you missed. Dah, ya think??? So I shoot again. BOOM!!! I miss again. The skunk is running faster and faster towards the woods. Well I would be running faster and faster too if someone was shooting a shotgun at my backside. BOOM, I shoot again and then again. I have now shot four shots at this poor little rascal and have yet to hit him. I have shot the dirt all around him, I have waited for him to get a really good head start on me so I don't get sprayed, and I MIGHT have waited just a little too long. I get to laughing, the animal control guy gets to laughing at me, it is no use. I am not going to be able to shoot this skunk and kill him. He is too far out of range by now. And besides, the little stinker stuck his tongue out at me and wiggled his fingers in his ears yelling nanny nanny poo poo at me just to get one last gig in at me. I figure if this guy can out run me from shooting at him, he deserved to live another day. I swore the animal control officer to secrecy and he promised. Now I have to go fill the paper work out. Anytime a gun is discharged you have to get a time and temperature reading from headquarters and fill out one or two forms. You then draw a little diagram of the big bad officer shooting the poor little skunk. So I did. Yes I had a girl policeman stick figure shooting a long barrel shotgun at a little poor skunk laid over on its side dead. You have to show where all the shots went etc and all that junk. So I did the only thing I could do knowing I was going to be in serious trouble for not shooting the skunk. I had to lie. Now please don't think bad about me, I am not a liar, and I didn't really refuse to shoot the skunk, it was just harder than I thought. He was running away, and he was little, and I did let him have a little bit too far of a head start and my heart just wasn't really into it. So yes I was wrong for lying, I am very sorry I did it, but I put on the diagram that I killed the skunk. Then I was asked why it took four shots....I lied again. I said I had to make sure that he was really good and dead. They never asked me to shoot another skunk again. Do you think they bought it?