A Hideous Discovery

When Bob got home today from Ozzfest, he immediately noticed the foul odor that I had been periodically noticing throughout the day. I thought the smell was just my imagination because I didn't smell it all the time and I couldn't find anything stinky that would have MADE that odor.

Bob went on an intense search for the stink. Apparently, the odor that I barely noticed was so foul, he had to smear Vicks Vaporub under his nose to be able to breathe. He narrowed the source of the smell down to the laundry room.

He tilted up the washing machine and I -- bracing myself for the worse -- got down on the floor to look underneath it...nothing but dust bunnies. Phew.

Then Bob got a flashlight and pulled the dryer back from the wall.

His face instantly changed expression from intense curiosity to total horror.

"I found it," he said.
"What is it?"
"A giant rat," he said.

He went and got a couple of garden rakes and came back in to remove the dead stinking rotting rat.
On his first try he got the rat up from behind the dryer and put it into a plastic shopping bag. He immediately took the bag outside, across the yard and threw it into the culvert at the edge of our property.

"I want to see the rat!" Elizabeth yelled.
"No!" Bob yelled back.
"Why can't she see it?" I asked.
"You don't want to see it. Maggots." he answered.

Bob came back inside to finish the cleanup behind the dryer and promptly gagged and ran outside to throw up over the side of the front deck. I was glad then that I didn't see the maggoty dead rat.

To exorcise the demon of the dead foul rat, Bob then poured half a bottle of Fabuloso lavender floor cleaner behind the dryer. He followed that with some Lysol foaming bathroom cleaner on the floor and up the wall and finished the cleanser cocktail off with a generous spraying of Febreze. He then put a fan in the laundry room to remove the stench.

I can't believe I didn't smell a dead rotting maggoty rat all day. The stink was so heinous, it made my husband vomit, yet I was fine all day doing laundry in there....unbelievable.

It's days like this that make a person wish they had anosmia, like Amy. Though I guess, I sort of did today, since I didn't gag, puke or really even smell the dead thing.