I want you to imagine the worst thing that you have ever smelled. No...worse. Got it? Now triple it. Quadruple it. That is what the inside of my car currently smells like. It's like the Bog of Eternal Stench got together with every landfill, decaying roadkill carcass and your stinky, little brother to spawn the most unimaginable funk known to man. Noxious, deadly, poisonous, lethal, toxic, putrid, malodorous, reeking, foul, rank, squalid, decaying, fetid. Nearly fatal, at one whiff it will put you into a hundred year coma. Smelled peripherally, it will merely knock you unconscious for several hours...possibly days and make you incapable of eating for weeks afterward. What's worse…my hands still stink - after vigorous scrubbings and repeated sprays of Glade Fabric & Air, they still stink. You never realize just how many times your hands come near your face until they resemble the odorous equivalent to mass genocide.
How? How is something of this magnitude possible? Would you believe that instead of a can of whoop-a#$, this morning I opened a can of death? As is my usual morning routine, on my way out the door, I grabbed a banana and my can of Safeway brand Weight Loss Shake. As I sat at the light, waiting to turn left out of my neighborhood, I shook up my can and popped it open. Imagine my surprise when it started to fizz and bubble, pouring over the edges like a bad science experiment.
What the? I was immediately greeted by just the edges of a new smell, but it was one I couldn't imagine coming from this can. It didn't smell like bad milk product. Instead it started first as an almost sweet smell and then rapidly progressed to an acrid, deathly gag-inducing cloud of putrescence*. Thankfully, I quickly came to another light, so I was able to open my door and pour the remaining offensive liquid onto the pavement. Unfortunately, I was still left was the offending can and the aftermath of the spillover on my floor mat, drive shaft area and even my pants. I drove the rest of the way with my windows down, but was still unable to breathe through my nose. Oh. I should also mention this. Honestly, I don't know what possessed me, but I kind of think it's a slightly human reaction to just "want to be sure". Because I still didn't quite believe that such an astonishing smell could come from my innocent can of liquid breakfast, I lifted the can to my nose and took a swift sniff. Now, I have a fairly strong stomach. I don't get car-sick. Gross stories don't literally make me want to lose my lunch...but this...ugh. It took an inconceivable amount of control NOT to vomit on my dashboard. But yes. I know. I asked for that one*.
I knew that I couldn't just get to work, abandon my car and run into work, so I called in and told them I'd be late and stopped at the first grocery store I could find. I have now employed the use of some heavy-duty fabric cleaner, 3 liters of water, a scrub brush and about half a bottle of Glade Fabric & Air. Pray for my car, folks. Pray for it. I'm actually afraid that when I get to my car after work, the noxious fumes will have reduced it to nothing more than a slightly steaming hole in the ground. So pray for Burnsie, folks. Also, if you can suggest a place that does good interior detailing for cars, I would be much obliged!
* Thank you Princess Bride.
**Does anyone remember the sketch on SNL with the family sitting around the table and one person opens the carton of milk and goes, "Oh man! This milk is bad! Smell it!" He passes it to the next person who smells it, makes a similar exclamation and thus it is passed from one person to the next...they follow w/ other things like, a broken chair - "Ow! This chair is broken! Sit in it!", etc. If had could have found a clip of it somewhere, believe I would have posted it here! But what on earth IS it about stuff like this, that we have to be sure or seek a second opinion? We humans are weird.
