WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL??? Redux

Okay, so we got a new mattress today– one of the kinds that comes rolled up in a box? I napped on it. It was delicious.

Anyway– that’s not the point.

The point is, I was out of the house when it arrived, and Mate went into the garage and left the connecting door open.

I came home, walked in to the house, and you guessed it.

WHAT THE HELL IS THAT SMELL???????

Anyway–my eyes were watering. I stayed in the hallway because I was afraid to look into the garage–there might have been a mastodon decomposing in there and I was not in the mood.

So Mate said, “You can smell that, right?”

“Dead people can smell that. Dead people without noses can smell that. Ghosts in other dimensions can smell that.”

“So it’s not just me, right?”

“No. Close the garage door.”

“Oh. Is THAT where it’s coming from?”

“Pretty sure.”

He closes the door, and we ignore the dead mastodon in the other room to get the mattress out of its box and unroll it on the bed. (Did I mention delicious? Mmmm…)

Later, as we’re driving to his soccer game, kids in the back, I mention, delicately, “Do you think something in the outside refrigerator went bad?”

“Yeah. Maybe.”

Beat. Beat.

Then he says. “Uh, I think last week? When ZoomBoy and I were BOTH using the electric weedwackers, I may have unplugged the outside refrigerator.”

“Oh.”

“And forgot to plug it in again.”

“Oh.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“No, no– shit happens.”

“I mean, so sorry.“

“No, no–I’m just glad to know what it was. I legit thought something died in there.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“You know what this reminds me of?” I asked him. “This reminds me of the time I wrecked two cars in the span of two weeks–brand new cars. And I got out of the second one after peeling the door practically off and sat on the front lawn and you said, ‘What happened?’ And I said, ‘I am too stupid to live.’ And then I cried, and you said it was okay.  This is okay. Seriously. As long as there’s not a body, I’m fine.”

And I am.

Of course… we both know who’s cleaning that up, right?

Although I offered to try to find a crime scene cleanup that specialized in hazmat detail, I think when it comes down to it it’s gonna be Mate, a pair of rubber gloves, and a refrigerator full of dead mastodons.