Gas leak or skunk spray?

As you know, Mom and Dad are in Florida with Grandma and Grandpa. Last night, I was studying metabolism for my exam tomorrow when I smelled something strange in the house. It smelled like gas, only it had a tinge of burning to it. I couldn't for the life of me figure out where it was coming from. I searched high and low, I looked out the window for a potential culprit, and began moving around the house trying to locate the smell.

Needless to say I was getting pretty freaked out, the oven was off, the fireplace wasn't on, and the toaster oven was off. So I called Mom and Dad to find out what to do. We ran through the list of things to check if they were on and then Dad helped me locate the Nicor gas people's phone number for emergencies. Before I called I went down to the basement and the smell was much stronger. The furnace was on so I walked into the panty and was overwhelmed with the smell of gas and I immediately got light-headed, so I called nicor.

The operator who answered my 'gas emergency' was not very friendly, he asked me what my emergency was and as I was telling him he cut me off to ask what our address was. He informed me someone would be at our house in approximately 30-40 mins. I grabbed my cat, turned off the heat, grabbed my notes and pulled the car out of the garage and sat in the driveway waiting for my helper. Sabbath was not thrilled with being in the car and attempted to climb up into the car from the space where the pedals are. Finally, the gas man arrived and I explained the situation to him and that I had turned off the heat, opened the back door and we headed inside.

He used his gas meter and we headed down to the basement and about 10 steps in he says, you know I think the smell might be a skunk. He used his meter on the pipes and nothing beeped. He said it smelled like it had sprayed right along the back of the house, well that's right where the porch is. So we headed back upstairs and outside, where the smell continued on. We noticed that the window well cover was slightly off and he suggested that a skunk may have fallen in, sprayed and jumped out. But he checked the meter anyway and then left on his way, but not before assuring me that the spray of skunks is almost chemically identical to that of natural gas and that it was better to be safe than sorry/dead.

I should've asked if this happens often. I thought he may have been trying to make me feel better about my idiocy, so I googled skunk spray and natural gas. Apparently they put the odor from skunk spray (butyl mercaptan) into natural gas because it is normally odorless. So I still feel like an idiot because I really thought I was going to die, but at least I wasn't completely off the mark. I had to air out the house today because it still stinks of skunk.