Have you ever smelled something so bad that you wanted to cut off your nose so you wouldn't have to smell it anymore? Have you ever smelled something so absolutely, stunningly horrific that you wanted to cut off your entire head?
That's what happened this morning. It was so bad that I was looking for even a dull knife to end my pain.
It all started when Bryce woke up and immediately bolted onto the condo patio to see his "friends." His friends consist of captured crabs, snails, starfish, lizards, fish parts, bones and anything else that he can catch or find in the ocean, the condo, or the deepest depths of the Amazon rainforest. In the past five days that we have been here, he has gotten so good at catching creatures that he has put a dent in the local creature population.
He ran out onto the patio and I forgot about him until he came running in to tell anyone who would listen that his sea snails were having babies! I did not listen, I admit it. The reason why I did not listen was that something in the condo immediately started stinking the place up--something so bad that you caught a sniff and you wanted to run out of the condo and retch over the condo's railing.
We tried to find the source of the stench. We thought it was a bathing suit. Then we thought it was a shirt. Then we thought it was a towel. And all the time we was trying to find the smell, Bryce was demanding to be heard. The snails had died and were having babies! Why would no one listen to him?
We eventually tracked down the stench. It was Bryce! We grabbed him kicking and screaming and threw him in the tub. He had gotten snail guts all over his pajamas! He didn't want a bath, he wanted to watch the snail babies, but we forced him into the water and scrubbed both him and the pajamas.
After he was washed and dried and breakfast was over, we went out to the patio to get bathing suits, etc, from the towel rack that the condo has out there. It was then that we discovered what had caused Bryce to stink so bad. Bryce had wanted to see what sea snails are made of after they die so he had dug them out of their shells and smeared the corpses onto the patio. They had then rotted in the hot humid sun as only sea creatures can and the smell was horrific. It smelled so bad you wanted to gag. It smelled so bad you wanted to vomit your breakfast over the railing into the unfortunate patios below. It smelled so bad that you wanted to vomit your head over the condo railing! It smelled so bad you started to hallucinate and smell the stench long after you had fled to another country or even the moon!
Why do timeshare condos not provide hazardous materials suits?
Have you ever seen that episode of Seinfield where Seinfield gives his BMW to a valet and gets it back with B.O. and he can't get rid of the smell? Getting his car detailed did not help. Getting it steamed cleaned did not help. The only thing he could do was drive it with his head out the window.
That was a walk in a flowery park compared to what was going on our patio. This stench was so bad it reminded me of the time I was out duck hunting as a kid one very early winter morning and grabbed a "duck" in the dark that was hiding in the grass. The duck, which had fur and a white stripe down its black "duck" back, sprayed me full in the chest. The smell was so bad it made me light headed. The smell was so bad it made me dizzy. The smell was so bad that I couldn't tell for sure that I had been sprayed! I was too incoherent, dizzy and light-headed to smell! The only thing I could do was stagger home and strip naked in the snow in the back yard and hang my gear and clothing on the back fence then go inside and have my mother dump tomato juice all over me in the bathtub. Have you ever been bathed in tomato juice by your mother?!!!! Even to this day I block out the event. The only thing I remembered after it was over was I still smelled so bad that the only person who could stand me was myself. And that was because my nose had been burned out like a dead light bulb.
Getting sprayed by a duck-skunk was bad. Grabbing a duck-skunk wasn't the smartest thing to do in the pre-dawn light. But what Bryce was growing on the condo patio was worse. So what could be worse than Seinfield's B.O. or being sprayed full in the chest by a duck-skunk?
Flies had found the snails and had laid their eggs in the smears and their "babies" had hatched! The snails were having babies! Maggots were crawling everywhere!
We cleaned up the horrific, god awful mess and took all creatures, both alive and dead, and threw them all, cursing, back into the ocean while Bryce wailed his misfortune.
And the patio? It still smells but at least it does not burn a hole in your brain.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to watch a rerun of Seinfield's B.O. episode in Spanish. This time I will keep a sharp eye out for the scenes when he was in his BMW. I bet there was a nest of sea snail babies hiding under the seat!
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