Wednesday, July 30, 2008

EW! What is that smell?

For weeks, I passed through my laundry room (make that laundry hallway) and would catch a whiff of something truly foul. It was like stinky feet sitting in sewer. The thing is, the smell came and went, so I would tend to forget about it.

Finally, however, I uncovered the culprit. And what do you suppose that culprit was?

1- Laundry? Since I do my laundry with some regularity (I'm no Martha Stewart, but then she has people do her laundry for her. I'll bet in prison, she had someone launder and press the zippers on her orange jumpsuits. But I digress.) No, the laundry was not the smell.

2- Garbage can? Again, I empty the garbage with some regularity (at least before the trash reaches the ceiling), and I have been known to spray Lysol in the can before replacing it with a clean bag.

3- THIS WAS THE CULPRIT:

It was not this exact one that was the culprit, but something similar. ROTTEN POTATOES. Not having a pantry, my wonderful husband who is perfect in every other way stores our 5 or 10-lb. bag of potatoes on the DRYER. (Or maybe I put this bag on the dryer). Anyway, since potatoes fester in heat, and what is hotter than a DRYER, the leftover potatoes decomposed into a smelly, slimy, festering mess.

When I uncovered the mess, there was oozy brown and green slime on the dryer, on the bottom of the blue laundry basket on the dryer, and at the bottom of my laundry detergent box. My friend Mahina was over watching a movie with me at the time. Like the true pal that she was, she fed me paper towels and various housecleaning products until I banished the smell (mostly) from my house.

We opened windows, lit a scented candle, and sat down with a bowl of Tillamook Udderly Chocolate Ice Cream covered in Magic Shell and finished our movie.

Case solved and noses happy.

12 comments:

Sarah said...

When a potato goes bad, it is the worst. Although I've never smelled one when it reached the point of slime. I can only imagine how bad it was. I"m glad you found it.

Dina said...

Just found a potato culprit in my pantry yesterday! Actually, Jack woke up first and went in to get some cereal and came running back out and said, "There's a cow pie in there!" It was bad. I found the offending potato and we banished it from the house. It took awhile for the stink to go away, though. Ew!

Sidney C said...

Oh man! Glad you found the culprit. I've definitely had some stinking things in my house but I have never seen a potato that looked like that.

Darilyn said...

Rotten potatoes are the worst thing ever. I'm glad you had a friend over to lighten the mood and eat icecream with.

mahina said...

that is one nasty looking potato in that picture! thank goodness we didn't have to actually look at your rotten potatos because smelling them was bad enough!

it was a good thing we had the ice cream to wash away the smell so we could enjoy the rest of the night!

Bridget said...

Oh, that is so nasty! I hate when I find molding food. Glad you could drown your misery in ice cream. It always works for me.

paula said...

Yuckie!! I hate it when the potatoes get lost and then found when they begin to smell!! Paula

Chelle said...

Great story with a happy ending.

Margaret said...

Yummy, I look forward to having dinner at your house sometime. :)

Elizabeth Dimit said...

Si, Margarita, and now you know what will be on the menu. :-)

sarahseekingsanity said...

I agree. I had some go bad in the back of my pantry once and it was awful til I found them. Happy smelling.

Unknown said...

That is sooo gross! Thanks for the warning to potato lovers everywhere - I will be more diligent about throwing out old ones after that horror story!