Did you ever sing that song when you were a kid? It was something we sang when we had at least three kids to ‘play it.’
Never heard of it? It starts like this…
Kid 1 – “There’s a dead skunk in the middle of the road, I one it.”
Kid 2 – “I two it.”
Kid 3 – “I three it.”
Kid 1 – “I four it.”
Kid 2 – “I five it.”
Kid 3 – “I six it.”
Kid 1 – “I seven it.”
Kid 2-
Well if you were ever the kid who ‘eight’ it, you quickly learned to say, “I jumped over the fence and (insert name of one of the other kids who were singing) eight it.
Why? Why am I remembering this now?
Well because there was a dead skunk in the middle of the road one Friday night.
It was really almost on the center line. I saw it on my way home from girl’s night, and I thought how grateful I was that it was so close to the centerline, so I didn’t hit it, or have to swerve to miss it, or worse yet, run through it.
In fact, the next morning when I drove past it again, it was still intact near the centerline.
Sadly when I drove through later in the afternoon, the skunk had been flattened. Why? It was close to the centerline, someone had to either not be paying attention, and drifted close to the line, or they deliberately smushed it. Again, why?
Evidently, Grandma couldn’t avoid it on her way through, because both the dogs got a little wild when they got near Grandma’s car. In fact, they both gave it a thorough sniffing.
What is this weird smell?
She sniffed it here.
I think there’s something under here.
And here.
Funny, I can’t see anything, but I can sure smell something.
And here.
Gives an entirely new meaning to odor recognition.
I know sometimes accidents happen, but too often people actually aim for the wildlife just trying to cross the road. It always makes me sad when I see them on the roads.
This time of year, there seems to be a lot of skunk smell outside, but we have never been interested in it. Now if it was on the car, that might be more interesting! Main thing is keep the smell off the dogs!
OMD! I hope it wasn’t bad enough for the humans to smell it! I figure dogs pick up the scent of just about anything with all those sensors in their noses. But I’d really hate to smell it myself. Especially in my own driveway. Ewwww
As for the skunk game? The kids in my neighborhood didn’t play it that I remember. We played hopscotch, monkey in the middle, tag, and a slew of other games that we never bothered to name. Ah, those wonderful, carefree days of childhood!
Poor Pepe le Pew (all skunks are named Pepe le Pew in my mind). The remains of a dead animal on the road always saddens me, even when it’s a common squirrel. Often another critter becomes a casualty, checking out the original one. Makes for interesting sniffs for dog noses.
I don’t remember that game either. You’d have to be kind of stupid to run over a skunk purposely, wouldn’t you? If the scent even lingered on your mother’s car, imagine if you deliberately hit it right in the middle? Then again, we all know there’s a lot of stupid people out there! LOL
It looks like Delilah is ready to do some nose works training!
Sometimes I wish I had the remarkable nose of a dog. Those times do not involve skunks or any other disgusting odors.
Yikes – glad you didn’t hit it, or the dogs didn’t run into it! Rita got sprayed in the face last year and it was NOT fun! (And i never heard of that game! We used to sing a lot of silly stuff, but never heard of that one!)
So…were there a lot of skunk fatalities in your neighborhood back then? I have never heard of that before and wonder about the genesis of that particular chant.
There are always dead skunks in our neighborhood–it makes it unpleasant to keep the windows open on cool nights! And even Barley, who is usually really good at “leave it,” really wants to pop off the sidewalk and get a closer look at those things when we’re out walking. Ick!