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Same... before age 22, the only skunks I'd ever seen were also cartoons. And when I finally did see a real one, it was a dead one that got run over by a car. Apparently the musk gland got ruptured or something, and I got a whiff of it as I drove by. And that small whiff was bad enough... I hate to think how bad the car that ran over it got sprayed.

Allow me to introduce you to a ballad by Loudon Wainwright III describing a common occurrence where I grew up in the Midwest, and an occasional experience here in the Pacific Northwest.

He certainly paints a picture :)

Yup, that song is pretty much in line with my first ever time seeing a real skunk... which actually did happen to be in the Pacific Northwest! (Oregon if I remember right)