Picture this – me, Saturday, late morning, wearing beat up sneakers, paint-stained shorts and a give-away T-shirt from a race I ran 5 years ago, work gloves on. Sweat soaked hat on backwards. Earphones off and hanging around my neck. Hot, humid and steamy weather. Then picture me staggering out of my garage onto the driveway and on a patch of fresh cut grass, first bending over with my hands on my knees, then squatting down, gulping in fresh air with the scent of newly cut grass, eyes closed, gagging and suppressing a natural reflex to throw up, trying not to let loose my breakfast, waiting for the vomit to rise to my throat. Finally, the feeling passes and I am fine. All of this because of a smell that came out of my garage. Interested in how this came to be? Read on.
The weekend before last we decided to have a seafood cook out. Patti’s parents came up Saturday night and since it was suppose to be nice out, we decided to grill up some lobster, shrimp. Swordfish and other side dishes. Saturday late afternoon Patti, I and the kiddies went into James Hook and bought three lobsters. We then went to a local seafood place and got uncooked and raw shrimp, the fish and some other stuff.
On Sunday we ended up grilling two of the lobster and boiling one, grilled the fish, steamed the shrimp and spend the afternoon playing in the backyard with the kids, eating and doing what people should do on warm summer Sunday afternoons.
After the day was over and Patti’s folks left, I cleaned up and took the lobster shells and left over non-edible parts, the shrimp peels and veins, and every other piece of garbage and put it in a bag in a trash barrel in the garage.
I was away on business during the day the garbage goes out so I didn’t have a chance to put this smelly bag by the curb. Also, the same garbage barrel included a couple of bags of the boy’s dirty diapers and a dead mouse I caught on a glue trap in the corner of the garage a few days before the cookout.
Now, picture this concoction of baby crap, lobster innards and shells, shrimp skin, and one dead mouse, sitting in a non-climate controlled garage for a week with hot and humid New England weather.
So Saturday morning after I cut the grass I went to move the barrel out of the garage to get to something else. When I got within about a yard of the thing, I smelled what could have possibly been the worst odor in the history of the world. Now, at some point some of the dead mouse’s friends got in and broke open the bag of fish crap, so on the bottom of the barrel was a bunch of loose floating fish and crustacean garbage with other assorted fruit and vegetables. It was awful. Truly awful. Hellishly awful. Mother of Mercy awful.
So I put on gloves and bent down into the trash can to get the bag and it fully ripped open, spilling the entire contents out so that the smell of fish, dead mouse and baby shit hit me like a garbage truck. It was at this point that a flash of nausea came over me and I staggered out of the garage.
Keep in mind I still had to get all of the crap into a large contractor’s bag, clean out the barrel, and find a place to keep it where the smell wouldn’t kill my kids and local critters wouldn’t feel compelled to break in.
Anyway, just thought I’d share. Fascinating, I know. I live a life that many men envy.
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