What IS That Smell?

Oh, dear readers, have you ever asked this question?

You smell something that's not quite right. You light a candle, or spray some air freshener, and move on.

Then, it gets worse.

Your apartment begins to reek.

You take out the trash, de-stink your sink, change the cat litter, light a candle, and move on.

Then, IT GETS WORSE.

Now your apartment has an odor you can only liken to Dementor's breath. And you CAN'T. FIND. THE. SOURCE.

You know the call is coming from inside the house - you just can't seem to figure out where.

So, if you're me, you employ your ridiculously attuned Scooby Doo super sniffer and start searching high and low. Yes, I have sniffed every inch of my apartment.

And then you find IT....


Let me take you back to Sunday night. I am a big believer in sales, so when I found turkeys at a huge discount after Thanksgiving, I bought one and froze it. Frozen stuff really only keeps about 6 months, so since it was coming to be that time, I roasted my turkey Sunday afternoon. I carved up the meat, put it in tupperware, and put it in the fridge.

Now you're thinking, "oh, she must have dropped a piece of meat somewhere and it started to spoil and smell."

Not with a catfish-type dog around. That would be too easy.

Then, being a student of my father's frugal, "use every part" ways, I boiled the carcass to make stock, then drained off the fat, strained the broth, and froze it.

Now you're thinking, "oh, she didn't get rid of the turkey carcass. That's what smelled."

If only it were that simple.

After three days of worsening smell, I found IT.

You see, while boiling my turkey carcass, apparently the boil got a little crazy and began spilling over the sides of the pot, where it began to drain UNDER the drip pans on my stove and POOL IN PUDDLES OF NASTY beneath my cooktop.

Yes, that smell, that God-forsaken, dead fish mixed with Satan's rear end mixed with other nastiness smell, was rotting, fat-laden turkey broth.

Half a bottle of Fabuloso, 39 paper towels, 6 gags, and a little candle burning later, and the Dementor's breath smell was gone.

Only me, y'all. Only me...