One of my favorite neurologists has a skunk problem. At least she says she does. I haven’t seen it, but she says it lives under a rock near her swimming pool.

She wants me to trap it, so I will. She scanned my brain once for free. I owe her.

I’ve trapped her skunks before. I don’t know why she has so many. They don’t know she’s a neurologist. Maybe it’s the swimming pool or the little vegetable garden.

I trap them alive, of course. I tempt them with an irresistible delicacy, peanut better on a jaundiced stalk of fridge-wilted celery. They waddle into my trap, a cage-like thing with door at each end, incredulous of their luck, and bam: their lives are changed forever.

They’re never in a good mood when I arrive. They’re already putting up a stink so bad it makes my eyes water. I throw a blanket over the trap and hustle it to the back of my pick-up. Then I drive it far away and let it go.

The beast I’m after this time is different. I’m told it’s big, fat, and all white. It might not even fit in the trap.

The fear is that it’s pregnant. One big, fat skunk today could be five or six skunks around the time the pool opens for the summer.

I’m the kind of twisted individual who would actually enjoy seeing half a dozen big, fat white skunks show up at a pool party. I’m not much of a party person. Definitely more of a skunk person. If skunks showed up at more parties, so would I.

The skunk’s notorious defense mechanism is based at two glands located, appropriately enough, on each side of the anus. A powerful muscle can shoot an aromatic outpouring ten feet with a high degree of accuracy.

It’s more than a scent. It’s a chemical weapon. It can fend off a bear. The human nose can detect it from three miles away. Dogs can smell it from even farther. The difference between bears, people and dogs is that dogs don’t care…until it’s too late.

It didn’t take me long to think of weaponizing a skunk. I know a few people who really need to be put in their place, and nothing brings the haughty down to earth like truth issued from the business end of Mephitis mephitis.

The neurologist’s attorney tells me the Second Amendment doesn’t cover weaponized skunks. I feel this is a case for the Supreme Court, but she declines to take on the case.

(She sends this counsel from Paris, where, pending an end to the pandemic, she’s holed up in a small apartment with her husband and the neurologist’s newborn grandson. Skunks are the least of her concerns.)

Connecticut statute Sec. 26-55-6 (3)(B) lumps skunks in with tree kangaroos, African boomslangs, blue-gray gnatcatchers and swamp wallabies, none of which may be imported or possessed in the Nutmeg State. You can get in trouble just for offering succor or comfort to a skunk.

(Parenthetical digression: why do we call it the Nutmeg State when, pound for pound, skunks are by far more preponderant?)

Back to weaponizing. The statute on Category One Wild Animals says nothing about tying a skunk to the handle of someone else’s garage door. It does not mention FedEx Same-Day Delivery.

So watch out, ye haughty hypocrites, ye supercilious hoity-toits, ye contemptuous fake-news fans: your life may soon change forever.

Just for the record, you can possess up to six skunks in Arkansas. In Washington, D.C., the limit is one per person. For more information, contact the American Domestic Skunk Association.

The word “skunk” comes from the Algonquian word, “seganku,” originating from Proto-Algonquian, “sek-,” meaning “urinate,” and “akw,” meaning “fox.”

Fun fact: skunks do not spray other skunks, though in the heat of the mating season, males may hose each other down in hopes of winning their true love’s heart. Fun times!

Skunks are polygynous, meaning that males are willing to mate with more than one female. They do not participate in rearing the young. You may know a skunk or two like that.

Please remember that importing or possessing one in Connecticut is illegal. If you must dispose of one, drive it far away and let it go.

Glenn Alan Cheney is the managing editor of New London Librarium. He can be contacted at glenn@nllibrarium.com.