Varmints

by Douglas J. Eboch

Hear the story read by the author

In the town of Normal, Pennsylvania, there’s a little church at the corner of Wilson and Elm. Ralph Billings is head usher at the church and husband to Tammy, the church secretary. He’s also the unofficial church handy man. Ralph believes good nutrition is the key to a good life. So when he learned that the pre-school Sunday school class known as the Guppies had made cookies one Sunday, he got very frustrated. Karen Winslow, the teacher, should know better than to encourage the kids’ sweet teeth!

But Ralph was a positive guy who didn’t believe in giving negative criticism. Instead, he decided to do something positive: he would help the Guppies plant a garden of healthy vegetables in back of the church. Karen was happy to accommodate his suggestion -- as long as he would be the one showing the kids how to garden. In fact, she secretly looked forward to seeing how Ralph would fare intentionally bringing the kids to a big patch of dirt.

So the following Sunday Ralph got someone to fill in as head usher and wore his overalls and straw hat to church. The parents had been forewarned to have the children dress in gardening clothes as well. Karen gathered the class by the back wall of the church where a section of ground beside the flower garden had been set aside for the project. Ralph explained to the kids that they were going to grow a variety of vegetables and that in a couple months they’d be able to make a yummy salad out of the things they grew. The kids thought that sounded really cool and dived into the work with enthusiasm.

Overall, things didn’t go too badly. Yes, a wayward shovel stroke breached the sprinkler line and the resulting deluge seeped into the adjoining classroom, but it only took Ralph four hours to repair the damage and clean up the resulting mess that afternoon.

Yes, the packet of beet seeds mysteriously disappeared. Little Mary Boyer was not fond of beets and decided maybe she’d enjoy the promised salad more if it didn’t have any.

And yes, Mary was overly fond of snails and slipped several in her pocket while planting, which gave her mother Jill quite a start the following laundry day. But then, Jill was used to finding unusual things in Mary’s pockets.

So overall it was about average for a Guppy class project. And by the end of the church service, a fine garden had been planted.

The following week, Ralph was delighted when the kids came running up at coffee hour to tell him how little shoots were sprouting in the garden.

Two months later, the report from the kids wasn’t as positive. The plants had been growing wonderfully and the first tomatoes were beginning to ripen. But sometime during the previous night, something had dug up several of the garden plants. Ralph went to inspect the damage. It was just as he suspected:

A raccoon.

Thus began a pitched battle. Ralph first tried various repellants suggested on the internet: Cayenne pepper. Moth balls. Coyote urine. Each worked for a few days, but inevitably the raccoon returned.

Then Ralph stumbled across a really clever solution. He bought a mechanical Santa Claus that waved its arms and sang carols to act as a scarecrow. It worked…but then the neighbors complained about having to hear “Jingle Bells” in the middle of summer. So, Ralph was forced to disconnect the speaker. Apparently the raccoons were as relieved as the neighbors at the break from June carols because they quickly returned, ignoring Santa’s waving arms.

There was only one thing to do. Ralph would have to trap and relocate the raccoon.

Ralph purchased a large animal trap and planted it in the garden on a Tuesday evening when Tammy was attending the monthly trustees meeting. He placed the trap at the back of the garden behind the tomato plants and baited it with some shrimp -- a raccoon favorite. He then found a quiet corner where he could read until Tammy was finished. But less than ten minutes after settling in, he heard the loud clang of the trap’s door. “Got ‘im!” thought Ralph.

Ralph grabbed his flashlight and hurried around back. He could see two points of glittering light where the raccoon’s eyes caught the flashlight beam. But as he parted the tomato plants and stepped in to pick up the trap, he realized something was wrong. Instead of a gray-furred critter with black mask, he saw a creature that was all black with a white stripe.

A skunk.

It hissed and stomped its feet in warning, then turned its backside to Ralph. Ralph scrambled backwards, but tripped on the chord for the mechanical Santa. He tried to roll away but he was tangled in the chord.

The skunk sprayed Ralph long and thoroughly. Ralph wailed as the pungent odor assaulted his nose and tears poured from his eyes. In the meeting room the trustees stopped their discussion of parking lot lighting upgrades to ponder what the unholy screams could mean.

Ralph finally managed to scramble away from the skunk gagging and choking. He crawled into the bathroom and splashed water onto his face. He then stripped down and rinsed out his clothes. The smell was horrible. And it wasn’t just coming from his clothes -- it was coming from his skin, too.

Half an hour later when the trustees meeting broke up, Tammy spotted him sitting in the courtyard soaking wet and miserable. She approached, worried, but stopped short when the smell hit her. “What happened!” she asked.

“I caught a skunk by mistake,” Ralph replied. “Can we go home?”

“You’re not getting in the car like that. It’ll stink for weeks.”

“What am I supposed to do?”

“Tomato juice gets out skunk odor.”

“Where am I supposed to get tomato juice?”

“You’ve got tomatoes growing in that garden, right?”

So Tammy drove home to pick up some fresh clothes for Ralph while he squeezed the juice out of several of the tomatoes and began taking a sponge bath in the sink.

Meanwhile, Henrietta Miggins, one of the church trustees, was heading back to her car after giving Pastor O’Donnell a piece of her mind for twenty minutes following the meeting. Normally her tirades lasted longer but she was a little tired that night. As she passed the bathroom, she noticed the door was cracked open a couple inches and there were splashing noises coming from inside. She looked in and saw a half naked man covered in red liquid.

Henrietta sucked in her breath but retained enough composure not to scream. She ran back to the meeting room where Pastor O’Donnell was just locking up. “What now, Henrietta?” he asked.

“There’s a naked bloody man in the bathroom!” Henrietta hissed. “Call the police!” Pastor O’Donnell was skeptical of Henrietta’s report and walked toward the bathroom. Then he saw a rivulet of red running out from under the door. Remembering the odd scream they’d heard earlier, Pastor O’Donnell ran to his office and dialed 9-1-1.

Once the police arrived they quickly sorted out the situation and had a good laugh about it. They called Animal Control to release the skunk and then, being careful not to get too close to smelly, tomato juice soaked Ralph, they informed him that it was a violation of city ordinances for an individual to trap and relocate raccoons. That was okay, Ralph assured them, he had no intention of trying again.

Tammy then took poor Ralph home where she made him sleep on the old futon in the garage for the next four days.

The good news was that the skunk’s liberal spraying effectively discouraged the raccoons and they left the garden alone from thereon out. The bad news was that it also effectively discouraged the Guppies Sunday school class. The garden was abandoned for the year, the remainder of the vegetables left uneaten.

The following week the Guppies once again made cookies. Ralph kept his opinions on this to himself.

(c) 2007 Douglas J. Eboch