I can only laugh.
I was away from home doing automobile maintenance, and I had Karal with me. Debbie, my neighbor who left, offered me accessibility to the incredible woman who cleans her house and after much consideration, I thought, "Why not invest in someone taking care of the home in ways I want to, but just don't have time to accomplish?" So I hired Claudia to come in twice a month to freshen up the house. I have Karal, dog hair, a manic schedule, and great intention. Besides, Debbie said, "there's nothing better than coming home from a weeks worth of work to smell cleanliness, pristine, and fresh everything."
I couldn't wait. I brought groceries into the garage, let Karal in, and proceeded to clear out the car before I entered myself. I took a deep breath, opened the door, and stepped inside to inhale. I couldn't wait to appreciate the freshness I was anticipating.
I was ready.
When I entered the home after a day of being away, I felt like a commercial. Let me be an advertisement of the good work of Claudia. I stepped in, inhaled deeply in my nostrils, and ...
...I took in the deadliest of dead fish smell. Edem decided he wanted to cook fish on the stove after Claudia left and all I took in was fish carcass. It was beyond pungent and I gagged in my mouth.
Edem was like, "What? I don't smell it?" I advised him to walk outside for a while and re-enter the house, which he did. He gagged, too. "It's pretty bad, isn't it?'
I haven't smelled this smell since Herbie, my Hermit crab, decided to disappear from his shell in search of a larger one. The poor guy never found one, and ended up dying behind a dresser (dad flushed him down a toilet).
That was a parallel smell.
Needless to say, I found incense sticks and ransacked my house with patchouli. All the windows are open, and I'm trying to match the odor with the cleanliness I can see in every room. I think the humor comes from the fact that all day I couldn't wait to inhale the investment of Claudia's great work. Nope. I got dead fish, which I suppose I deserve. It's all fixed now, but it definitely is one for my record books. And Edem and I had a talk about cooking fish, wrapping body parts in bags in the bins outside in the garage, and to attempt to keep the place non-vermin-attractive on the days that the house is clean. I lived with Weijing from Beijing for many years and learned not to gag too much with octopus ovaries and crab intestines. I am hoping the same for Edem.
And I'm smiling. Of course this is the way it had to be. Why wouldn't it be? The guy cooks for himself. I can't hold that against him.
Welcome to October.