When I was 20 (a looooong time ago), I had just gotten my NY pistol permit and was hunting a small dump in the evening with a friend. We were having a ball, when a state trooper dropped in since it was adjacent to a road. We was wondering what all the shooting was about. So we told him. He spotlighted the area , got out of the car, drew his revolver and was just about to start shooting, when reality struck him and he realized that there was no way he was going to be able to explain why he used his ammo shooting rats. Even though I was young looking, he never asked to see my permit. Boy things were simpler in those days!
That was the night I stepped on a skunk. I had a flashlight taped under my .22 rifle and was paying more attention to what was happening some distance in front of me and not enough about what was happening right in front (the next step). I stepped, felt something moving under my foot, and heard it squealing. Oh-oh, this couldn't be good, I thought! Pointing the light down, there was a skunk pinned to the ground with my foot at the base of it's tail. Apparently it couldn't spray in that position, and it couldn't turn around and bite me! Kind of like wrestling where you have your opponent pinned! I pondered shooting it, but figured that it would somehow spray as it died. My buddy had no solution and was too busy laughing to be of any help, so I picked the clearest path, jumped off it and ran like the devil was chasing me! After clearing what I figured was a safe distance in record time, I saw the critter shake itself off and sort of rapidly walk away.
Boy, I miss rat shooting!