Adam Treu Breaks it Down.

Adam Treu sends a shout out to those of us obsessed with the glorious debacle that is the Oakland Raiders, gently urging us to back away from the ledge. (h/t Jerry.) Treu wants to ask ourselves these questions:

Have I wished the owner dead? Have I threatened to pummel Kiffin into a lifeless, bloody heap? Did I say if given the chance, I’d take a tube sock and a roll of nickels to Rob Ryan’s temple? Do I find myself surprised and/or disappointed by personal fouls and (alleged) DUI’s? Have I screamed at a player/fellow fan/family member/pet so violently I needed a Zoloft, a bourbon and my blankie?

I figured it would be fun to take them one by one:

Have I wished the owner dead? Yes. I'm not proud of it. I've also compared him to a woman in a persistent vegetative state.

Have I threatened to pummel Kiffin? No.

Tube Sock full of nickels to Ryan's temples? No, but that's a great image. And I wonder if it would work.

Surprised/disappointed by Personal Fouls/DUIs? No, and kind of. I think if you're surprised at these things from this group you're not really paying attention. Maybe that's the point.

Screamed at anyone so violently I need a Zoloft/bourbon/my blankie? I've screamed at the TV. And at a pet, but not because of the Raiders, but because they mess with skunks and/or are in general disgusting and disobedient.

But Treu's advice to find something else to love is well-taken. This is a freakshow. As Dan says, it's like learning to love the bomb in Dr. Strangelove. Let's blow it up.

This. Is. War.

Say Hello to Iggy Pup, skunk magnet.

That's right. Again. Tonight.

According to this website, "the stench is too powerful for most animals to bear, and serves as a deterrent against future attacks."

So that means that Iggy is either a badass who is not deterred by anything, or the stupidest dog who ever lived.

I was upstairs giving Baby Lily a bath when I hear The Professor through the floor say, "GOD DAMMIT."

The Professor's screaming Profanities and Baby Lily keeps trying to throw water on me--water she's no doubt peed in--and I'm trying to yell at her to stop splashing and listen to what The Professor is yelling at me all at the same time and it turns out I just don't possess that particular Super Power.

Since Baby Lily's busy pouring all of the water out her bath, one Giants Souvenir Beer Cup at a time, I figure the chances of her drowning while I head to the balcony to check on The Professor are pretty low.

As soon as I open the door to the balcony, it hits me. That chemical-burn stench. The next time I get in a snaps contest, your mom's vagina smells like skunk. Seriously.

Anyway, The Professor asks if I can see it, but I can't see shit because 1. it's dark down there, and 2. my eyes are closed to protect them from burning.

While The Professor douses Iggy down with the last of the Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Remover, I get Baby Lily rinsed off and out of the tub.

The Professor comes upstairs and I say to her, "Hey babe. You're a Yale-trained historian. You've conducted research at some of the finest archives in the world. Is there any chance that while you were looking at old diaries of scabies-ridden gold prospectors in the 1850s, or Indian laborers on Mexican-era Rancheros in the Northern Central Valley, that you came across a method of skunk removal and/or repellent?"

She mumbles something, the only word of which I can make out is "asshole," and sits down and puts her prodigious research skills to work on Google.

So she found another site that suggested you line your fence with chicken wire and bury it a good six or eight inches so those stank-nasty sons of bitches can't dig into your yard.

So listen up, you foul-smelling bastard. I have a Home Depot credit card and I'm not afraid to use it. I'm putting up some fence tomorrow morning. And if that doesn't work, maybe I'll hire some day laborers to go on a skunk hunt. $15 a pelt.

And free Nature's Miracle Skunk Odor Removal.

You've Got to Be Kidding Me

It's Tuesday, so that must mean it's time for my dog to blasted by a skunk.

What the fuck? Does this little Pepe Le Pew motherfucker make his rounds of the backyards on this block? Tuesday night is blast-the-pinscher night?

Jesus Christ. I was under the sink, tightening the faucet because the Professor has been breaking my balls all week about it being loose. I start tightening it and my nostrils started stinging. At first I thought I'd stirred up some bad humors from the last time. But then I hear the dog spakking at the door.

It's not as bad this time, because the dog was blasted outside. But he ran straight up the stairwell, so the kitchen and office smell like mung.

Now Mike Shepherd can post a comment about how I plagiarized Wayne's World from 1990.

I was all set to blog about Mike Williams getting cut, Tommy Kelly being out for the season, Tim Dwight signing a contract, and Baby Lily's first big earthquake.

Fucking Skunks.

Sex Panther

So the Professor is reading night-night stories to Baby Lily when I decide to head downstairs for a smoke. I bring the dog with me so he can have an evening constitutional in the backyard. He barrels down the stairs ahead of me, snarling. I figure he's after one of the neighborhood feral cats that the Professor has been feeding in the back yard.

I get down the stairs, into the garage, and start towards the door that leads to our little yard, and I smell the worst goddam smell I've ever smelt. Iggy--that's the dog--comes back inside foaming at the mouth and kind of hacking, making this sound like "spak" and I don't know what to do so I yell for the Professor to get her ass down here pronto.

"I think Iggy just got sprayed by a skunk," I say and she comes down and sure enough that's what it was.

The Professor, before she went to Yale, came from some solid Okie stock, so she called up her brother. "Ya need to git ya some incontinent wash," he tells her. His coon hounds have been skunked a time or two, and he has cases of that stuff laying around because his baby mama uses it.

I head down to Walgreens to get some peroxide and incontinent wash and as I walk in I hear the security guard say "What's that smell?" and a person answered "It smells like a skunk" and I thought "Oh, fuck, they're talking about ME." So I ask an employee if he has incontinent wash, only I said it like, "Do you have body wash for old people who are, like incontinent?" and that poor fucker had to walk me to the aisle it was on, and he was trying so hard to be polite and not just run away retching. The stuff was located near the Depends Undergarments and all they had was moist wipes with Aloe for incontinence.

So I got the peroxide and cut out of there as fast as I could.

I get home and park and the Professor has started stacking things up in the driveway so we can wash down the floor and walls of the garage with bleach. We got the formula from some hippie website I looked up while holding my breath, because now the whole goddam house smells like Bigfoot's dick.

Long story short, we scrubbed down the garage. We'll probably get home from work tomorrow and it still smell horrible.

But I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Except maybe on Marty Schottenheimer.