A Stinky Situation

Years ago, I took my Girl Scout troop camping. We went to a camp down by Warsaw. Beautiful camp, absolutely gorgeous. Wonderful place to take hikes, rappel off a cliff, watch the wildlife, learn archery, study creatures in the lake water. Just an incredible amount of opportunities for the girls to learn something and have fun doing it
We stayed in a site that had perma-tents. One had electricity but the girls didn’t know it and I wasn’t telling. That perma-tent was left empty.
We had the usual fire ring – the ranger (a good friend of mine) had brought us a stack of firewood. Only the big stuff, the girls had to find their kindling. We were still learning different camping techniques so this was a compromise.
Our latrine wasn’t bad. It was a cement block building of sorts; long sink with spouts on one side, and three stalls on the other side (with porta-potty type toilets) with cement floor in between and open on both ends. There was one light bulb that was on 24/7 hanging in the middle of the building. Roughing here was not bad. I’ve been worse places for sure!
We had a great first night there. The girls were in a good mood and cooperative. We sang songs around the campfire and ate smores – it was girlie – and it was fun!
The next day we kept the girls busy with KP duty, and as many fun activities as we could squeeze into the weekend. All the while we were working on badgework. The theme for the weekend was “direction” so we learned to use a compass and played games to enforce it. The archery instructor even showed the girls how important it was to know which direction the wind was blowing. It was a great fall day and the girls worked hard and played hard, so it didn’t take much convincing to get them to bed down for the night.
We spread the adults out amongst the girl in different tents. They were still a little young and a few got nervous and so it wasn’t a problem. We did our nightly checks – no food in the tents. (It’s amazing how many times you tell apparent – do not pack food…or at least tell me that you’ve packed food so I know to remove it at bedtime. There isn’t anything worse than a pissed off raccoon who wants that food!)
Anywho, as my luck would have it, nature called in the middle of the night. I quickly dressed, grabbed my flashlight, and dashed off to the latrine (the girls’ would’ve had buddies).I’m almost there when I hear a noise. I look towards the picnic area and there sat the fattest raccoon I’d ever seen in my life. The summer camp kids were good to this guy let me tell you. His cholesterol had to be over 300 for sure. But, that wasn’t the noise I was hearing either so I stopped just short of walking into the open area of the latrine. The light of course was burning and luckily so, because in front of me was momma and baby skunk! I froze, didn’t so much as blink while momma got between me and baby. I’m thinking “oh sh*t”. Real Girl Scout-like isn't it? I stood like that – and blinking only when necessary for 22 minutes. I cannot think of a time when 22 minutes went any slower. That baby was all over the place exploring and momma had her eye on me the whole time. Kept between me and the little one – she was a good mommie. I tried to back away once and I saw the tail rise up. I froze. I didn’t know how far she could shoot that stuff! So I froze – and I stayed frozen. Now you know I waited until the very last minute to get out of my bunk to pee in the middle of the night so after 22 minutes of waiting, I’m about to the point of crying. Baby finally decides to head off in the other direction and momma happily followed. As soon as they were out of sight, I hear “Are they gone yet?” I about lost it! Scared me to death! My assistant leader was in the middle stall (it had a door with slats on it)! I had no idea she was in there! I mentally thanked my OBGYN for telling me about the benefits of the Kegal exercises and swore upon my flashlight that I’d do them faithfully for the rest of my life. Told her not to go anywhere till I got out and went to do my business.
When I was recovered, she explained that she was just about to leave when she thought she heard something. She looked out the slat on the door and saw the baby skunk and knew momma wasn’t far away so she just stood there watching me. She was afraid to say anything to me for fear it would scare momma and she’d shoot with her stuck in that stall! We both got to laughing.
Course the girls were bummed since they didn’t get to see the baby but we had seen enough!