Smell

I recently had the opportunity to experience what was, in my
opinion, the absolute worst smell I have ever inhaled in my
life.
Of course, it was my own fault. If I had eaten the oysters
the evening of the day I got them, I would have been spared
this experience. ("And if my grandmother had wheels, she'd be
a garbage truck," as my mother used to say.) But let me
recount the events in their inevitable, ugly order.

I was at Robert's house, eating almost-thawed oysters after an
afternoon of band non-practice. (It would have been practice,
had our guitar player not broken his wrist the day before.)
I was practicing my usual technique of hanging out right next
to the oysters, looking real hungry, and grabbing them as soon
as they were shucked. Robert didn't mind. He was as eager to
get rid of the shellfish as I was to slurp them.
The oysters, it turned out, were left over from the day before
when he'd got them to eat during/after the big game. (The big
game, that particular day, was FSU vs somebody-or-other.) FSU
won, but the celebrants couldn't finish the mountain of
oysters - - so these were still on ice the next day.

So there we were, going at it on Robert's front porch as the
afternoon sun began to sink, when Bob, the bass player and my
ride, says "ready to go?". Robert, quick as a Florida
defensive tackle, says "would you like to take some home with
you?"
Being partial to the squishy crustaceans, and wanting to help
out, I quickly assented even though I knew I'd have to shuck
them myself. And a baker's dozen were shuttled into a mini-
cooler along with some ice. I hefted the cooler into Bob's
van, thanked benefactor Robert, and we were off back to
Tallahassee.

I live in a sometimes-haunted house. That particular Sunday
evening it was haunted. The house's spirits entered me, and I
became forlorn and incapable of constructive activity. I
forgot about the oysters.
Well, one thing leads to another, especially during a Hectic
Business Week ...so as I went about my affairs, it was
perfectly natural for the oysters languishing in the cooler to
go about theirs and do that perfectly natural thing once ice
melts: decompose.

Days passed. The cooler, however, maintained an appearance of
innocence, which is to say it looked cool from the outside. A
cooler just looks cool, especially when you don't give it too
much attention.

One fine day towards the middle of the week I discovered that
fine, cool-looking cooler sitting on my kitchen floor. And I
decided to look inside, maybe slurp a few. Hah!
The millisecond the tiniest crack appeared as I slid the
cooler's top open, lightning flashed. The ice caps melted.
Earthquakes rumbled, day was night, and my house was instantly
permeated with a rich aroma that can be described partly as
odious, partly as stenchful, muchly as death-warmed-over, and
accompanied by myriads of swarming little flies. It was
ghastly, even for a haunted house.
Needless to say, the lid was snapped back tight, but like poor
Pandora I was too late. The spirits of death had been loosed
and breathing normally in my kitchen became impossible.
Even worse was realizing that I would have to open that
dreaded cooler again in order to clean it out.

All jokes about poison gas warfare aside, my heartfelt
sympathy goes out to the soul who had to empty my garbage that
day. I hope his supervisor believed him when he requested
hazardous duty pay; he certainly deserved it. Then again,
perhaps it's all in the line of duty for those with this
occupation, but I hope not.
As awful smells go, this will be hard to beat. Here's hoping
it remains the uncontested champion. And if you see me
slurping oysters more rapidly than usual, it's because I know
what can happen if you let them sit.