What's That Smell

I grabbed my bowl of ice cream and just as a sank the spoon to get my first taste the tones went off. After a quick run to the freezer I made it to the engine and slipped into my bunker pants. As the bay doors opened up I jumped into the rig and belted in.

We were responding for an odor investigation. The RP said that there was a smell of methane in the area. We thought that it was strange that they said methane and not propane or natural gas. It was a warm night and we figured that it was probably going to be a skunk call.

As we pulled into the cul-de-sac my engineer and I simultaneously smelled it. The, what I thought was unmistakeable, smell of a skunk. At the end of the circle we found the address. The family was all in garage which had been converted into a man cave complete with pool table and couch. The wife met us and asked if we could smell that? Her husband stood back shaking his head.

My captain, assuming that they were new to this smell, asked how long they had lived in California. Anyone that has lived in the Golden State for any amount of time has probably smelled Pepe Le Pew. When they said they grew up here he then asked if they had ever smelled a skunk before. The wife became defensive. she said that her dog had been sprayed by a skunk just 6 months before and that there was no way this was a skunk.

After assuring her that it was definitely a skunk (and a few I told you so's from her husband) we told her we would happily check the house and back yard for anything else that my be leaking. We checked the propane tanks on the backyard BBQ and the RV. Everything was good except for the exceptional strong odor of a skunk.

By the time we were getting ready to leave most of the neighbors had come out to find out what was going on. I'm sure they all had a good laugh.

If you think that was bad, the previous week we had an entire first alarm assignment responding for a gas leak that turned out to be a skunk. Dang trouble causing critters.