two dead mice

i have been both blessed and cursed with an unusually keen sense of smell. so, historically i've been called upon to help investigate and solve certain unimportant but annoying mysteries. such as, what in the hell is causing that weird funk in the fridge? this has always been my job. also, i have a unique ability to distinguish 'what something smells like'? here's one of my favorite examples: i used to work as a pharmacy technician so i obviously dealt with a lot of different pills. pills have their own (often weird)smell. so a pharmacist (ah, beloved terrence... i miss you), took a whiff of some pills once and said, "you know i could never really put my finger on what these things smell like..." i promptly took a sniff and spouted, "wintergreen and airplane glue!" i think terry thought i was a nutbag, but also agreed that was it.

anyway, this is another instance where my nose came in handy. leeser trotted downstairs last night to change loads of laundry. i was upstairs fueling up on cold hot dogs from the previous night's grilling and a tim-tam (australian cookie)....... don't ask about the combination, but refer to last week's post about 'the unthinkable'. she called up for me to come down for a minute. she had that tone in her voice like she needed help lifting something or moving something or a pipe was leaking and had made a mess. so, i scampered down the stairs to see her standing in the laundry room akimbo sniffing around. she says with a wiffy, sniff, snuff, "what do i smell?". i stepped one foot into the laundry room took a half inhale and blurted, "that's dead animal, something's dead... i bet there's a mouse in the dryer vent....." and high tailed it back upstairs.

oh man, was i right. after consulting my dad, we pulled off the vent to discover not one but two dirty little bloated decaying mice. i must admit i wasn't very much help at all with my shirt stuffed in my mouth and over my nose and my hand holding it firmly in place. you see this nose of mine....everything smells so loud! that, and dead animal smell is something that makes me feel very vomitty. not much else gets to me, stinky baby diapers, puke, dog shit, blood........ just the dead animal smell. whew. good thing leeser was around to take care of it. i just lended some moral support and got the hell out of there asap.

so, if anyone smells a mysterious funk in the basement, check out the dryer vent... another friend of mine found a bird in there. stupid animals.