Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The Curious Case of Smelljamin Stinktton

A tale for you all....

A tale of mystery.

Of intrigue.

Of magic.

But mostly of mystery.

Wait, no magic either. Sorry.

And pretty light on the intrigue too, come to think of it.

Anyway... so I go into the downstairs half bath the other day. I TCB (that's take care of business for you unkool kidz out there) as normal. As I'm in there I smell something.

Something nasty.

It's one of those difficult smells to pinpoint. Is it common dirty bathroom stink? Is it something rotten? Is it bad breath? Very difficult indeed. Pervasive is this stink.

I decide to take matters into my own hands and clean the bathroom. I guess I was banking on dirty bathroom stink. I get out my lemon scented wipes, Comet & Windex and go to town. 6.5 minutes later the bathroom is sparkling. Unfortunately it still stinks.

I'm ticked.

You know what this means......I just cleaned my bathroom for nothing.

Having given the bathroom a good once over I conclude the stench is not originating in there. I proceed into the laundry room which is just next door to the bathroom. The smell is a bit stronger in there. I get excited because by now I am obsessed with ridding my home of this invisible menace.

I check in the cupboard under the laundry room sink.

That's when I see it.

A mouse trap I had set way back in the day.

I put it in there because that is where we keep Maggie's dog food. And you know how them meeses love dog food. It is one of those covered traps. I can see that the trap has been set off but it's facing the other way so I can't see the "entrance" to the mouse condo. I cringe.

I call Gty and yell at him for being out of town and I curse the boys for being in bed.

What am I supposed to do now? Leave a rotting mouse under my cupboard until Gty gets home?

I decide to go to bed & have JBird inspect it in the morning. I am NOT touching that thing.

Cut to the morning.

JBird wakes up & is given his assignment. Like a good little "man of the house" he does his duty. He reaches in, pulls out the trap, looks....... no mouse.

Wha?

I'm relieved and annoyed. No mouse but my house still stinks for no good reason.

So I proceed to get the boys off to school.

I'm finding jackets, getting snacks together, pulling old papers out of backpacks, etc. I reach into TBone's backpack and pull out a library book. The pages are all warped and it smells like barf. I look down deep into the backpack. That's when I see it.

A chocolate milk that has been in there no less than forever. Rotten. Exploded. Dripping out of TBone's backpack and on to the floor. I literally gag. I make the boys smell it just for fun. I find a strawberry milk that is well on its way to the same fate. I then throw TBone's backpack away. It's just not worth it. I pull out his kindergarten backpack. TBone cries that backpack is for kindergarteners. I give a small lecture on what happens to milk when it's not refridgerated. TBone declares it the worst day of his life.

Mystery solved.

Footnote: The boys come home from school holding their jackets at arm's length. Yeah. The backpack on the hooks had dripped onto both of their coats. They said their hallways at school smelled like barf all day.

Lollerz.

Kids are fun.





15 comments:

marcikay said...

can I just say you are my blogging idol? I'm always giddy with delight to see you have a new post, and I read as slowly as possible, to let the joy last a bit longer..

Miss Adi refuses to throw her garbage away after lunch and keeps it in her lunch box to give me the pure joy of dumping it.. (i guess)

Just last week, I experienced the exact same scenario.. HALF FULL chunky chocolate milk in the beloved Tinkerbell lunchbox.. That was a doozy to clean out.. bluh..

No smelly jackets here, though.. Whew!

Hazel said...

I still think that milk should be haterade.

What are you talking about, no magic, no intrigue. Dripping with it, dripping, my sweet.

Lucky for me, Hazel started thowing her lunch away at school. (I am pretty sure it is because she was sick of me asking why nothing is eaten except the dessert.)

Memzy said...

You really should give yourself more credit. I was on the edge of my seat the whole time. At least it wasn't a meese.

Silver lining.

Good little "man of the house" Jbird.

Hot Pants said...

I would take the "rotten milk/throw away a backpack" scenario over "dead mouse rotting away" any day. I say you got lucky on this one.

eekareek said...

That was more fun than a Nancy Drew book. Thank goodness it was not a mouse.

E said...

Quite a curious case. You had me going with the dead meese. But rotten milk is stinkus-maximus. We had a mystery smell once that took us a good week to solve. Our whole house smelled like death. It turned out the smell was coming from Cords feet--he'd been going sockless wearing tennis shoes in the sweltering heat. So bad.

Flem said...

There is nothing I mean nothing that motivates me to clean more than this kind of scenario--a stank.

So I have to say that it is kind of weird that you did not at least look to see if a mouse was rotting there. And also that you thought a dead mouse would smell like barf instead of rotting animal smell.

But cool that you didn't know the diff.

And of course I must echo the sentiments of the other readers as to the enjoyment of reading these posts...

Carol said...

That post was THE BEST!! I loved it and had to read it twice to confirm the smell was NOT a dead mouse but indeed smelly milk/barf. There may be one stink that is stinkier that your stink---dog poop/diarrhea under the bed, covered by a t-shirt--undetected for 2 days (Kevin's bed). vomiting as I write.

Memzy said...

^Ewe Aunt Visor. Ewe.

Elder Jack Anderson said...

Flem, I told you it was a mysterious smell... not your normal barfy smell cuz it was being smothered by a backpack! And I'd rather not have the image of a decomposing mouse with maggots on it burned into my brain for eternity. I'd much rather mentally scar my son, tyvm.

And srsly, AV, gross.

Sox said...

I think the best part is that they had to smell the stink all day at school. Sometimes the best consequences aren't planned.

Markie23 said...

That story reeked of mystery, stank of intrigue, and contained a distinct magical putridity.

ManicMandee said...

I think that's worse than a mouse. Maybe not. It's a tossup.

Kylee said...

It hasn't been just once that I've been led to do a desk-search at my school because of this same disgusting smell. I now do desk searches BEFORE the Christmas break.

solidgold (a.k.a. our family) said...

Very Intriguing AND mysterious....I think one of your kids did the same magical thing to my van.
Rotting Chocolate Milk is as scary of a smell as it gets! I was just so relieved it wasn't a mouse though...phew!