In my life I have smelled some foul smells, as anybody has.Human feces comes to mind, having changed many a diaper from my two boys. My wife thought it was funny that I would dry heave and gag and maybe at first she thought it was an act. It wasn't, but after time I managed not to be quite so repulsed and make it through a whole diaper without almost losing it.
There was a clear-cut worst smell in my history but today I experienced the second worst. I wore a drywall mask and rubber gloves while I cleaned out a fridge, my fridge, that was broken and no longer kept anything cold. That would have been okay if I cleaned it out the day it went down but I didn't. In fact, I had no idea it was broken and Shannon and I figured tha the freezer was left open and that we had ruined some food.
By the time we figured it out, our food had gone south and the contents were toxic. Included was a full gallon of milk, some recently collected chicken eggs, remaining dyed easter eggs, vegitables that liquified, butter, mayo, leftover chili, some curry dish (that I really mourn not eating) and sundry items.Shannon and I moved the unit out of our house and into the garage but missed garbage day by one day, so it sat in there for a week. A couple of times before the move somebody in the family, by force of habbit, would open the door to get some milk or water or something and the smell would overwhelm the entire kitchen if not the whole floor of the house. Horrible.
Today I masked up, masked up 5-year-old Logan, put on the rubber gloves and dug in to put everything in the garbage.
Wow, did it reek! The eggs were leaking brown ooze, the milk (skim) was completely separated and the humidity had grown a nice black mold around the fringes of the condiments, leftovers and tuperware. The muffin tin that held the Easter eggs, one per muffin cup, became a casualty of the unfortunate mechanical failure. I am sure I could have washed it off and it would have been sanitary but the association of that smell would have never gone away for me. Never. The ice trays were a casualty as well but nobody will mourn those.I also hooked up a hard spraying hose and tried to wash all that moist mold from the vegie drawer, meat drawer and nooks and crannies of the soon-to-be landfill fridge.
Wow I am proud of you for cleaning that out! I am sure Shannon was grateful too!
ReplyDeleteYou are going to call the electric company and have them come haul it away right? You know you get money for that right? I don't think they care if it has mold either.
What is that moldy mess in the picture?
Yep, I'm pretty grateful you took care of the fridge! Atleast the weather has stayed mild and we haven't had a record breaking heat wave.
ReplyDeleteOk Larry, only because you wrote about what you did am I writing this, but I've got a funny 'smell' story for you.
ReplyDeleteLast October, I had stomach/bowel surgery, in which they removed my stomach and a portion of my bowel. Apparently when my stomach was taken out, the smell was so bad that the entire room commented on it. When the Surgeon met with my wife after the procedure, the first thing that he asked was "what the hell did he eat? It was the grossest thing we've ever seen."
I think that's saying a lot coming from an operating room, and especially considering my Surgeon did his residency in San Francisco.
What I had eaten was my brother-in-laws baked ziti....5 days before. I can't imagine how bad that smelled, and looked, and although I didn't personally witness it, I thought the fact that the entire OR did warranted a comment.
As usual, great post :)