The Car of Eternal Stench!

On the way home from Austin after the holidays, I got breakfast tacos at Whatabuger and they were awesome! Fluffy eggs, crispy bacon- just perfect really! I was so pleased.

I had a lot of unloading to do when I got home, so I left the bag in the car. I also thought it was empty and wouldn't be a big deal. I later went grocery shopping that afternoon because I hadn't been home in two weeks in and I also needed to make dog food.

The next time I got in my car was two days later and it smelled kinda bad. I thought it was the forgotten Whataburger bag and so I disposed of it and thought nothing more of the problem.

The next time time I tried to get in my car was this morning; it had been sitting directly in the sun for four days. I was on my way to go get tacos again. I got in and sat down and... it smelled bad.

I mean really bad.

I mean, seriously, "is there a dead animal in here?" bad. Hmmm... look around. No, no dead animals that I can see, no corpses either.

Something under my seat caught my eye- but no, it couldn't be...

It looked like a misshapen tube of ground turkey... like what i make my dog food out of... like what I had bought six days earlier at the grocery store and apparently not noticed as it slipped out of the grocery bag and under my car seat!

Oh, ew. Really, really ew. Like maybe the most disgusting thing ever!

By misshapen, I mean it was a tube of ground meat and now is a giant, scary bubble, balloon like bomb of nastiness just waiting to explode. I was actually quite scared to even touch it for fear of mass contamination.

I had to step away from the car to collect my self and avoid throwing up. How do I remove this ticking time bomb? Will it rupture when I touch it? Thoughts of rancid ground turkey splattering everywhere send me into a cussing fury. What do I do? How did this happen? Why! Why now when I am starving and desperately need tacos!

I look around in vain for a man to help me. No, no knights in shinning armor in the parking lot- no, just me. Damn! Oh god, I so do not want to touch this crazy stink bomb. What do I do???

I like to be prepared and am socially responsible, so I have a stash of doggie poop bags in my car for emergencies. I think this qualifies. I gingerly, drape one bag over the distorted tube of funk and with my pointer finger I tap at the tube.

It's what a botanist would call turgid, but unfortunately this is not a well hydrated plant cell with a rigid cell wall to keep it from bursting, this is rotting, stinking meat in a thin plastic wrapper that is stretched to its limit. It's holding on for dear life. The words on the package are comically stretched. Part of me wants to go get my camera, but the other part says, no we are the bomb squad and this situation needs to be diffused. We are currently "CODE RED"! There is no time to waste!

I eventually very carefully removed it by wrapping like four dog poop bags around it and tying them up. I held my breath as I did this, not only out of necessity, but out of fear. I am pretty sure this thing could have exploded and that would have been followed by my vomiting, if not also contracting the Bubonic Plague and having to pay a hoodlum to "steal" my car and burn it to kill the eternal smell!

Once the threat has been removed, the car's smell is still unbearable. Imagine the stinkiest dumpster ever. Now imagine trying to sit inside in to run about town.

Needless to say, I got no tacos. :(

-and I will not be driving today. Hello bicycle!