Monday, October 24, 2005

A Stinky Panda Bear In The Dryer?

Before we started to build our sukkah, my wife noticed a foul smell coming from the dryer. After putting my head in the dryer and recognizing the familiar horrible smell of a dead animal, I set off to the backyard with my three year-old daughter to investigate the window well where the dryer exhaust vent is located.

Since this window well is located under the bump-out section of our kitchen, I had to crawl on my stomach to access it. I looked down into window well and immediately smelled the horrible smell again and saw a grayish carcass that I thought was a squirrel.

I returned to the window well with gloves, shovel, plastic bag, and a bandana tied around my face. Crawling under the bump-out the second time, I tried to use the shovel to remove the dead animal but the animal was too heavy to lift. As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed that this grayish carcass was not so small. I could clearly make out a large head, long body, and two pointy ears.

I climbed back out and told my daughter that we could not remove the "stinky-smelling" animal because it wasn't just a little squirrel. To this she replied, "Not a squirrel? Is it a panda bear??" No, it wasn't a panda bear or even a giraffe. I told her that it was probably the fox we have seen in our neighborhood.

Not being a "manly-man", I decided to call in professional help at this point. Within two hours a truck pulled into my driveway with two men who looked like they made their living pulling dead animals out of hard-to-reach places. A muscle-bound man with tattoos on his neck and arms was able to remove the decaying 15-pound fox carcass in just ten minutes time. He told me he had just come from pulling a dead raccoon out of someone's wall and was now off to remove a snake from a car dashboard.

Before he left, he poured some moth balls down into the window well to help get rid of the odor. For the rest of the day our basement smelled of a bouquet of moth balls, scented fabric sheets, and lingering dead fox carcass. Luckily, the smell dissipated sufficiently so we did not have to eat our yom tov meals with the dead fox smell wafting in our sukkah - located just a few feet away from the window well.

17 Comments:

At October 24, 2005 at 6:23:00 AM EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

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At October 24, 2005 at 8:16:00 AM EDT, Blogger AS said...

What a lovely smell that must have been:)
Perhaps you should create a new perfume from it call it "dead fox".

 
At October 24, 2005 at 8:20:00 AM EDT, Blogger A Simple Jew said...

Yes, it sure smelled lovely. I am not sure if all that stink could even fit in a bottle ;)

 
At October 24, 2005 at 10:11:00 AM EDT, Blogger torontopearl said...

Only one thing to say:

"Ewwwwwwwww...."

(When I read the title of the post and started to read the post, I thought maybe it would be about one of your daughter's or son's stuffed animals getting caught up in the dryer somehow...)

 
At October 24, 2005 at 10:21:00 AM EDT, Blogger A Simple Jew said...

I wish it was only that, Pearl! I still need to buy some chicken wire to put up by the window well to prevent any other animals from following the fox's lead.

 
At October 24, 2005 at 11:28:00 AM EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Gee, I never thought of a fox getting stuck like that - it's a good thing they have professional dead animal removers (who knew?)!
My kids would have come running to see it; for some reason the younger they are, the more fascinating dead creatures are...
I hope you have had an enjoyable Tishrei (I'm sure your boss will be pleased that the days off are coming to an end - mine sure is)!

 
At October 24, 2005 at 12:10:00 PM EDT, Blogger A Simple Jew said...

CE: My daughter has told other people that it was "dead", but she still asks me when it going to wake up.

I think my boss is also ready for me to be back on a normal schedule, although he hasn't said anything. I have been sure to tell him that I would cover during his leave time at the end of December.

On another note, I don't know how I am going to come up with 5 days/week of blog content next week. I have gotten used to 3!

 
At October 24, 2005 at 2:06:00 PM EDT, Blogger yaak said...

What a story!
You could have named your post "Fox News Stinks" to get the attention of liberal bloggers. :)

Have a Hag Same'ah!

 
At October 24, 2005 at 2:07:00 PM EDT, Blogger A Simple Jew said...

Yaak: Thats a great title! I wish I had thought of that!!

 
At October 25, 2005 at 12:24:00 PM EDT, Blogger Jack Steiner said...

Yuck

 
At October 27, 2005 at 3:59:00 PM EDT, Blogger Akiva said...

Whoa! But, I've got to try to top that.

We hat a skunk visit our Sukkah! Fortunately we were in the house at the time, the children saw it through the sliding-glass door. Also extra extra fortunately my kids insisted I install the sukkah door this year (wood sukkah, swing door) which I usually don't so we can easily pass in-out of the house (door side faces sliding glass door), so Mr. Skunk just wandered around wondering how to get to the crumbs.

B"H, since he didn't get upset we didn't have a smell problem like you did.

Hope you had a wonderful yom tov!

 
At October 27, 2005 at 7:17:00 PM EDT, Blogger A Simple Jew said...

Jack and Akiva: Yes it certainly did not smell pretty. Akiva, I have never heard of a skunk as an ushpizin before. You are certainly lucky he didn't leave you a present.

It is hard to believe yom tov is already over. I just took down my sukkah this evening.

 
At October 28, 2005 at 8:54:00 AM EDT, Anonymous Anonymous said...

OY - a skunk!
Another selection from the "it could always be worse" category:
Being in Brooklyn, NY, we don't have skunks... but about 5 years ago, my neighbor down the block had a very unpleasant rat visit his sukka (the houses were up a hill from train tracks and scattered debris) - which was the cause for many shreieks, yells, and a stampede of feet running all directions.
Luckily, we were done with the meal and the entire block pretty much went inside. Glued to the window, we all watched the rat head back to the tracks not to be seen again...

 
At October 28, 2005 at 9:53:00 AM EDT, Blogger PsychoToddler said...

That's pretty disgusting. imagine what it would have been like if you had discovered it on yom tov.

Interesting that your daughter thought of panda bears.

 
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