Skunked!

Sometime in the wee hours of the morning, my brain awoke to growing alarms from shocked olfactory nerves, themselves blind-sided by airborne chemicals sucked in by my unsuspecting nose.

As the lights clicked on in my mental shed and consciousness dawned, a strong impulse to shut them all off again and lapse into a coma overwhelmed me. 

What the f... ?  Had a skunk family held relay races under, or God forbid - in - our house?  From the incredible strength of the odor I had the immediate impulse to glance beneath the sheets.  Was a skunk in bed with me?

The usual culprit in these cases is a skunk letting loose outside the house, but the smell is usually not so intense.  Still, on reflex, I opened a window and checked.  Fresh as a daisy outside! 

A quick walk around our darkened  house found the smell mind-foggingly intense in our bedroom, the living room, the dining room, and the kitchen too.  However, a chilly walk with flashlight around the outside of our house and then a glance into the basement turned up no culprits on which to pin the crime.  The basement didn't even smell!

So what then? Did a skunk, normally a non-arboreal creature, crawl up on our roof and let loose down an air vent?  Did one sneak, somehow, into our house, take a few laps, then equally stealthily slip back outside?  Was the smell coming from a parallel, skunk-dominated, dimension?  Are there skunk ghosts?

Mystery unsolved, and with windows wide open (what thief would enter with this smell),  I lapsed back into fitful sleep. 

If it happens again tonight, I am selling the house, economy be damned!