Skunk
Day Thirteen of Thirty Days of Writing

Mary decided to attend this month’s city council meeting to complain about the tree limbs that still hadn’t been picked up after the storm two weeks ago. Ridiculous, she had told her husband, Richard. We pay all these taxes, and it takes them almost a month to pick up the mess. He had replied that they’d get to it soon enough. Well, soon enough was not good enough for Mary. She knew that to get things done, she couldn’t just sit idly by, and it was getting ridiculous.
A group of birds had started to build nests in the pile of branches that were stacked about five feet in the air. The deer problem in the neighborhood had at least doubled as the bucks brought their fawns to feast on the low laying tree leaves. Richard had almost hit one coming home the other night. Enough was enough. Today she was going to take a stand.
Mary filed into the designated room at the community center, and took a seat in the front row. She saw the city councilmen huddled in the left corner of the room. There were a few people scattered around the room, but no one yet in the front. She had read somewhere the front T of the audience received the most attention at these kinds of gatherings. A few other disgruntled men and women filtered in, everyone sitting scattered throughout the room, as if afraid they wouldn’t get their deserved attention if they sat too close together.
Mary checked her watch 3:58. The council started to take their seats, and at exactly 4:00 sharp, they called the meeting to order. The first twenty minutes were dedicated to community announcements and volunteer opportunities, after which they finally announced it was time to open the floor for questions and comments.
Mary stood quickly to be first in line at the microphone in the middle of the aisle, but an extremely disgruntled man pushed her aside. She looked at him in disbelief, but no one else seemed to notice. Mary pulled down the hem of her blouse and smoothed her top. She had a mission here. She looked behind her at the other two men and three women lined up. Not one smile on those faces, Mary noticed, and felt a grin creep up.
The first guy complained about a crack in the community tennis court that he wanted fixed, going on and on about how dangerous it was for his rec team to play there.
Mary rolled her eyes. That crack had been there ever since she had moved to the county. After fifteen years, she doubted it was a high concern for the council. She waited patiently for her turn.
The council agreed to take a survey of the area in the next quarter to see what they could do. Mary smiled, fat chance.
The man pulled the baseball cap out of his pocket and shoved it on as he stormed out through the doors in the back room, clearly unhappy to have to wait until the next quarter.
Mary stepped up to the microphone and cleared her throat. “Hello council — ”
A woman burst through the back doors with an animal cage. “Look what you’ve done!” she screamed. There was a roar of disgust that began at the back of the room and moved forward, and then Mary smelled it. Skunk.
“You let this son-of-a-bitch die in my front lawn! Everything reeks, my house, my car, everything! The city was supposed to pick it up three days ago, and now it is DEAD.” The woman threw the cage at the foot of the platform the council sat on, and stormed out.
“Thought I would deliver it for you, assholes!” she screamed as the doors slammed behind her.
The smell in the room was unbearable. Mary began to gag. A woman in the back of the room had vomited. She had to get out of there. She ran toward the exit, catching the back of the crowd as they pushed through the door. Mary gagged again. She heard the council call for security, but there was no way for them to get through the crowd that was trying to exit the room, all at the same time.
Mary made it to her car and threw up by the bumper. Disgusting, absolutely disgusting. Who would have thought it was proper decorum to bring a dead skunk to a city council meeting. She didn’t even get to talk. She was fuming as she drove home. The smell of the skunk was stuck in her nose, and her frustration was pressing on her temples. There wasn’t another meeting until next month.
She pulled into the driveway and stormed inside, jumping immediately into the shower. Her teeth clenched at the thought of pile of limbs that still rested caddy corner from her driveway. By the time she was done, she felt a little less tense, and Richard was home.
“Good work, babe,” he said kissing her forehead. “They already got those limbs taken care of.”
Mary’s mouth hung open, and she nodded. “Wonderful.”
