Critters: Adventures in Wildest Suburbia

We met at the foot of the stairs. That is to say, he paused in his stroll long enough to fix me with a beady eye of disdain before waddling on to his destination -- which I did not stop to find out. There are eleven steps into our cellar, and I touched about three of them on my way upstairs to report to my wife that there was a skunk in the basement. "You don't have to shout," she said. Clearly she did not appreciate the gravity of the situation. In panic I called the local ASPCA. Yes, replied the young woman who answered the phone, skunks do get into cellars in the fall.... No, the ASPCA did not remove skunks from people's houses, the girl explained. "You might, you know, put a plank up to a cellar window so he can climb out, okay?" After another peek into the cellar to make sure it had not been a hallucination, I changed into my oldest clothes, breathed a silent prayer, gingerly carried a long plank down the steps, opened the window farthest from the skunk, placed the plank in position, and perched on the topmost step to watch. Evidently intrigued, the skunk walked a short way up the plank and surveyed the view. A cold, late October wind gusted through the open window and a few snowflakes flurried past. The skunk backed off the plank and sauntered away, shaking his head...