For those that know me well, it’s no secret that I am a bit – just a wee bit – of a germophobe with a slight neurotic tendency toward cleanliness. I am NOT OCD. (I’m CDO, because that’s in alphabetical order, as it should be.)
Anyway, with that little tidbit about my personality in mind, imagine how absolutely nuts I began to become when a rather rank smell started emanating from my refrigerator every time I opened the door yesterday. I went through and checked expiration dates on everything, and threw away every left over I had that had been there more than 12 hours in an effort to eliminate the rankness that offended my senses each time I reached for the milk. By midnight last night, however, it was still so bad that I took everything out of my fridge, bleached the inside of it, Lysol’d it out, and then replaced the food into their appropriate spots. Then I put in a fresh box of baking soda for good measure. I was able to go to bed after that, confident that by morning the warfare declared by my kitchen appliances on my olfactory senses would be won.
I was not wrong. The war did have a victor, but it wasn’t me. I could smell the rot with the door closed by the time I got up the next morning. Damn you, foul groceries! I opened to door to the fridge, armed with every possible disinfectant and deodorizing tool I could find. I was on the phone with my sister at the time, and was regaling her with my tales of stinky woe.
“I don’t know what the Hell that smell is! I have cleaned and cleared out and it still reeks!”
“Have you bleached?”
“Have I bleached? What is wrong with you? Of course I’ve bleached!”
“Baking soda?”
“Yes! And still it smells of butt crack and rotten food!”
“Curious. It shouldn’t still smell. Have you checked behind the fridge?”
“There’s not enough room for anything to get behind the fridge.”
“Underneath?”
“Ditto on the space under the fridge.”
“Do you know where the cat is?”
“Sitting here in the middle of the kitchen floor looking at me with eyes that plead, ‘please, for the love of Jose, close that foul appliance!’ “
“So the cat’s not dead behind the fridge… hmmm.”
At this point, my brother-in-law, who has been hearing my sister’s half of the conversation, offers his suggestion: “Maybe it’s the hidden portable to Narnia.”
Just as he utters “Narnia,” I pull out a pre-packaged salad toppings container for Southwest Salad (purchased from Wal-Mart, still sealed, and with an expiration date of 10/04/2009 stamped on it, in case you’re interested) and take a whiff!
“Augh! I’ve found it! Sweet angels in heaven! I found the hidden portable to Narnia! It’s in the Southwest Salad.”
And with that, I made quick dispatch of the Narnia portable. The not-so-hidden portable to Narnia has been re-located to the dumpster down the street.
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