I climbed up about 10 feet to the edge of an open topped tank about 30 feet in diameter. I needed to walk all the way around the edge, which was concrete about a foot wide and as I stood there thinking about how I was going to do it, the thought crossed my mind that this is the type of thing where I should get some help to make sure I was safe. There was a metal arm on a center pivot that reached out to the edge and I figured I could hold onto it and turn it with me as I walked along, which seemed fairly safe, so I started walking the edge.
About half way around there was a platform and some mechanical gear mounted just outside the tank. I thought I saw some brown fur down amongst the equipment a little below my level so I bent down to grab it and when I got close it scurried away. It was a weasel or some similar small animal. I climbed down to where it had been, looking for it, but it was gone. As I climbed around the little platforms that the various equipment items were sitting on I noticed another piece of fur, only this time it was black instead of brown.
I stepped closer to see what it was and it moved out from under a motor or something and revealed a white stripe down its back. I realized what that meant and also that I had cornered it, so I tried to back away as fast as I could. As I did the skunk turned its back end toward me. It was too congested to move fast enough to avoid getting sprayed, so I quickly grabbed the skunk’s tail and in the same motion flipped it up into the air and it landed inside the tank. I don’t know if it’s possible in reality, but the flip was faster than the spray and I didn’t get hit.
The tank was full of bleach. In the time it took the skunk to swim back to a place where it could climb out I watched the black part of its fur fade to gray and then an all white skunk walked out onto the edge.
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