There are some things that happen to you that you can only tell a spouse or a trusted friend or relative. There are some things that you can only talk about on the semi-anonymity of your blog. Well, I am going to do both, but my blog readers get to hear about it first because I was much too embarrassed to tell my dear sweet hubby about it last night.
My regular readers (all 4 of you, lol!) may remember me talking about my Neon having a particular smell to it about a week ago or so. Well, after that post I took all of my junk out of it, opened the windows, steam cleaned it a bit, and used some febreeze. Problem solved, or so I thought. It's been pretty hot here (finally) over the last few days, so I've been staying out of my Neon with no air conditioning and just staying home. But a family has to eat, so a grocery store trip was inevitable. I opened the door to that little car yesterday and WOW! I knew something was wrong, wrong, wrong. My children started begging me not to make them ride in the car. "Please mommy can we take the Blazer? Please?!?! It has air conditioning and it doesn't smell." Yes folks, it was that bad. But the Blazer is out of service right now. (Bad driver's side door. It was flying open when I turned. Hubby fixed it to stay shut until the parts come in and we can take it to the shop but now you have to get in on the passenger side and climb over the center console in order to drive it. Not fun at 20 weeks pregnant!) I am blessed with two very good little girls who rarely cry or pout. I'm not bragging - they are a gift from God that I feel I had very little to do with. But when they really put up a fuss about something I know that it is bad. And they were almost crying. "Mommy it smells so bad! What is wrong with the Neon? I hate this car!"
So, stuck with the knowledge that I have to get groceries but the car really smells, I did what any normal woman with pregnancy hormones REALLY kicking in would do. I opened the hood. Maybe some animal crawled up inside the engine at some point, I reasoned. Hey, it's happened before, right? But I found nothing except some oil. So then I thought "maybe the girls dropped something in the back seat that I didn't find before". Right. So we checked the back seat, under the front seats, etc. etc. Nothing. By then I was hot, hungry, and in need of something to cook my hubby for dinner so I told the girls that we had NO CHOICE. We had to take the smelly car and go get food. They sighed, got in, and rolled down their windows. I sighed, got in, and said a little prayer that the good Lord would have mercy on my stomach during the short trip to the store. We all stuck our heads out of the windows while I drove much faster than I usually do to the store. I'm sure there is a therapy bill in my children's future after that car trip.
After what seemed like the longest 1 mile trip of my entire life, we finally arrived at the store. The girls tried to convince me to allow them to leave the windows open so that the car could air out, but I just couldn't do that to the poor innocent people parked next to me. I tried and tried to figure out what was wrong with my stinky car while we were inside shopping, and I intentionally made the trip take a little longer because I didn't want to go back and sit in that car. I felt like I was living a real life version of Seinfeld's "Smelly Car" episode.
Our shopping was finally finished and it was time to head out to the car. I sent the girls to go sit in the car and wait while I unloaded the groceries into the trunk. More future therapy bills, I'm sure. I popped open the trunk and was greeted by a smell worse than than I could ever imagine. The trunk!! Why didn't I think of that before!?! I knew that I had to be a big girl and try to locate the source of the stench, without being too obvious to my fellow shoppers that I was having issues. As I rummaged around in my way-to-filled-with-junk trunk, I felt something wet in a bag. Oh no! Did my trunk leak too now? Noooooo....I couldn't get that lucky. Apparently some time ago on a shopping trip that I don't remember I bought a big bag of potatoes and forgot about them. I'll spare you all the details about what happens to a forgotten bag of potatoes locked up in a trunk for half of the summer. But I scanned the parking lot looking for a hidden dumpster where I could secretly dump the source of my smelly woes. Of course, no such luck. So I removed some of my groceries from a shopping bag, dumped the nasty bag in the extra bag, tied it really tightly, and put it back in my trunk. (Yes, I was desperate but not desperate enough to just leave it sitting there in the parking lot.) I got into the car and told the girls that it was going to be alright - Mommy was going to fix the smelly car. Yay!!! I drove home as fast as I could and unloaded the groceries. I grabbed the dripping wet bag of former potatoes and started walking toward my back gate to throw them into the garbage can when I heard my neighbor saying "Hi!" from the sidewalk. Murphy's Law. So I stood there with a dripping bag of smelly former potatoes and talked to her for a few moments about how I'm feeling and when I'm due until I just couldn't take it any more. I finally 'fessed up, apologised, and told her that I had to run back to my garbage can. We had a great laugh together when I came back out front, especially when she told me about the carton of eggs that got away in her minivan one time. I guess it can happen to anyone.....
But at least my car doesn't smell anymore. I checked first thing this morning.
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7 comments:
I don't have much of a sense of smell...but when I opened the trunk for the first time since camping and fruit flies came out at me...I knew something was amiss.
I really wasn't too bad - a plastic bag of empty bottles (we have a bottle deposit law in Michigan and each empty is worth a dime). But the cans were nasty taking them to the store.
THAT is funny.
glad you found the potatoes and your girls didn't have to ride in the stinky car :)
That so sounds like something that would happen to me :)
It wasn't a full bag, and it wasn't my trunk. I do, however, know only too well the smell of overly rotten potatoes! We left for vacation - a long vacation of four weeks - in the summer. The house was locked up tight as a drum and their was no air conditioning on. We came home to the worst smelling house to exist on the face of the planet. Why? When I cleaned out the kitchen and removed all food, apparently I dropped a few potatoes and they rolled out of site. They were under a free standing cabinet next to the fridge, which just added to their rotting because of the heat generated from ground level right up next to a running refrigerator.
So, take heart, you are not alone!
Sadly, I would have been able to identify that smell as well. I've had 'em go bad in the pantry on more than one occasion. My kids, bless 'em, are good about helping me put away groceries, but they're not familiar with the concept of FIFO (first in first out) and did not rotate the old potatoes to the top of the bin. It really is a nasty smell, isn't it?
Oh my goodness.. this is a fabulous story.. no kidding.. I feel like I have read an amazing comedy and when I think it is real... I just burst out laughing.. wow.. I can just picture you and your girls in your car.. thanks for giving me the best laugh I've had in a very long time!!!
That, Kathy, is too funny! I've never had that happen to me, but I can't say I NEVER will! Good post!
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