Thursday morning, 8/19
Bonnie announces that there is a strange odor in the house...it
smells like a dead animal. Maybe we should bathe all the dogs.
Thursday afternoon, 8/19
Bonnie bathes the biggest dog, announcing that it had rolled in
horse poop and that ought to do it.
Friday morning, 8/20
Bonnie announces that the house still smells. It must be the garage
or the laundry room. Maybe one of the other dogs that sleep in
the laundry room brought in a dead animal. Janique (our teenage
daughter) is directed to clean the laundry room.
Friday evening 8/20
Bonnie announces (more forcefully) that the strange odor is still
in the house....it seems to be coming from the garage...maybe
an animal crawled in there and died. She asks Luis to go investigate.
Luis patrols the interior perimeter of the garage and discovers
that somebody left a half bag of rotten potatoes left over from
last month's camping trip. Mission accomplished, problem solved...Luis
announces that the family is safe from intruding foul odors.
Saturday morning 5 am 8/21
Bonnie announces that there definitely has to be a dead varmint
in the garage....the smell is worse than ever....somebody had
better be looking more closely in the garage today! She leaves
for work. One hour later, Luis wakes up and remembers a bad dream
he had where Bonnie was yelling at him about a dead body buried
somewhere....
Saturday midmorning 8/21
Bonnie phones Luis to insist that he check the garage again. Luis
turns off the Diamondback game and Home with Terri O and goes
into the garage. There are no dead animals....there are no more
rotten vegetables....only an old 88 Mazda sedan, camping gear,
a leak coming from the chest freezer, horse tack and saddles,
various tools......
Wait! A leak from the freezer?!! Without thinking Luis throws open the freezer lid....he is greeted with a murky, slimy brown mess...a cloud of flies....and the most Goddawfullest stench. Retching is the order of the day...in between dry heaves Luis makes a mental inventory of the freezer contents: A 24 lb turkey...10 lbs of hamburger...various TV dinners...Lean Cuisines....Ice cream...and for some reason a bunch of popsicle wrappers with the sticks still inside. Heaving, Luis runs outside...he lights a cigar in an effort to get fresh air in his lungs. The neighbors are outside...they are walking around aimlessly with their noses in the air. Luis explains that the freezer is broken. Thank God, they say, we thought one of your horses died.
Later, dressed like a Mujahadeen (a rag soaked
in cologne draped across his nose and mouth), Luis wrestles the
freezer outside and manages to bag the maggot infested mess into
the trash. The next day two guys with a truck will haul away the
freezer and waste to the dump for $75 bucks and no questions asked.....Luis
thinks it is a bargain....so do the neighbors.
So what's the punch line?
Sunday, 7/18 (one month earlier)
Did I mention this next part happened a month earlier.
Janique Cerise Olivas (our teen) walks into the garage after a
grueling day visiting with friends. She seeks a delicious, cool
popsicle...her favorite. She opens the freezer and reaches into
the popsicle box. That's funny...they're all melted. The freezer
must be broken....I wonder why Mom and Dad didn't mention anything?
Oh well............