Traci Schauf: The ‘not-so-sweet’ smell of home

After wild weekends of kayaking with the guys (Hubby) and pajama partying (me and some shrill-voiced pre-teens), Hubby and I met up back home in Kansas. Where I knew there was no food in the fridge. No milk. No juice. Not even any crackers in the pantry.

Because we hold two residences, one in Kansas and one in Oklahoma, empty fridges and desolate pantries are not that uncommon. We’d been away three weeks, so I’d cleaned out the fridge before we left. Unfortunately, the husband had not.

A pungent odor greeted us at the front door, and that odor grew ever stronger the closer I got to the kitchen.

If this was a horror movie and not a blog, I would share photos. I’m sparing you from the sharing. Dead, decayed, slimy, melted-down-to-nothing fishing worms. Left from three weeks ago. Two containers’ worth.

Oh, but that’s not all, for just $9.95 you also get this Tupperware container of no-longer-metabolizing helgrammites. Helgrammites? Dobsonfly larvae. Nasty creatures found under rocks in the river. Pinch your finger off, they will. Fight like crazy, they will. Stink to high heaven, they do.

You’d think that since they’re in containers, in a cool environment, it wouldn’t be that bad. You’d be wrong. Dead wrong. Slimy, mushy, stinky, grossly wrong.

So far I’ve gone through an industrial size box of baking soda. Add that to the list of milk, crackers, and air freshener, will ya?

You may read more of Traci’s adventures here, at her blog, momonvacation.blogspot.com.

  • About Traci Schauf

    Traci Schauf ia a blogger, a blonde, a bookphile and outdoor obsessed. She contributes "The Happy Camper" to The WON. She also hosts her own daily blogs about her family and outdoor life.

     

The Conversation

3 Comments
  • Deb Ferns says: September 30, 2010 at 9:58 am

    Guess this takes more then Fabreeze? I used to think that heavy perfume could overcome the stink (used to do that in high school after running track) but that didn’t work then and probably won’t work now. Let me go digging (get it, digging/worms) into the Ask Heloise archives from Good Housekeeping and see if there are any other suggestions. ANd thank you for NOT sending the photos!!

  • Traci Schauf says: September 29, 2010 at 7:58 pm

    LOL- that goes along with that love of cemeteries, doesn’t it?

  • Women's Outdoor News says: September 29, 2010 at 7:43 pm

    I would still like to have seen a photo of the offending materials in your fridge. Call me morbid.