picture being in a familiar room, a room you know and love, a room you often frequent. only one thing has the potentiality of destroying your nice, little room–not a stack of vintage pornos, not a big pile of shoes, not a life-size sculpture of Larry King–but a peculiar smell.
the stench of something askew throws the entire room askance.
the smell could be a slow, festering, low note that is almost indecipherable from the usual culprits of dirty laundry and cat litter box. it is there, however, because it proliferates your possessions and soon you take on this slight stench. your friends can smell it when they enter your hovel but they do not call attention because you stimulate them with your witty banter and generosity with gins. soon you carry the fetor to your car and your office. it becomes your most distinguishable characteristic.
or, the smell could be a sharp, piercing, foreign slap in the face that hits you when you open the refrigerator after leaving 4 lbs of beef hearts in a faulty tupperware and refrigerator water mingles with blood and colonies of green fuzz are established. pungent, easily allayed, and yet annoyingly lingering, like that girl you met on the bus who went home with you after seeing you adjust your sock garters.
the most annoying peculiar smells creep up on you suddenly–you come home after a long day of tapestry-weaving and your garbage can has turned into a nasty terrarium, spewing whiffs of gunk and yuck since you left for tapestry-weaving not more than 5 hours ago.
are these odors preventable? in short, no. but they can be somewhat rectified through this home remedy passed down through my family: take 3 oxtails and afix them to your tuckis. wearing nothing but oxtails, a fanny pack and three wise men flag down the nearest bear trap with your mind and then consume 5 tins of Fancy Feast. Problem will be solved in no less than 3 hours. Enjoy!
-AR