Home, Rancid Home...

What a wonderful Spring Break I had... Five days in sunny San Diego and Los Angeles, California is AOK with me! I was however happy about coming home. After all, I'd get to sleep in my own bed for once but the drawback was having to go to school the next morning... ANYWAY, let me play this whole story out for you:

It's 3pm (LA time) on monday and I call the peeps to alert them that I am ready to get on the plane and to make sure to pick me up at the airport at 11pm. Sounds all fine and dandy right? Well, what my father was about to tell me would change everything, so much that it almost made me skip my flight entirely...

Apparently he had been spending his whole weekend in our attic... Why you ask? I'll tell you why. Well, APPARENTLY there is a DEAD ANIMAL ROTTING somewhere in either our attic or walls... YES. DEAD. And ROTTING. So Dad, "Does it like, smell a LOT?" I ask. "Umm... YA." Are you KIDDING ME?! He went on to further explain that he had already lost both his lunch and dinner and would probably never eat again. So my first thought was "Well, I guess we'll just have to move?" Apparently that wasn't what he was thinking. So he continued, unsuccessfully, to search the attic for what was either a dead squirrel, raccoon, possum, or armadillo. Now, I ruled out armadillo because let's face it, I've NEVER seen one in real life. And then I'm gonna go ahead and also cross out raccoon or possum because I cannot bring myself to accept the fact that a dead one of those could be somewhere above my head (in the ceiling), bound to fall on my as I sleep at night... So I decided that the rodent in the wall must be a squirrel (it seems the most harmless, although the one from Christmas Vacation STILL gives me the creeps)...

SO fast forward to monday night. Land in Dallas, get home. I walk in the door, very surprised that I really can't smell ANYTHING. So I'm like, alright, this dead animal thing might not be so bad so I go to bed, not once smelling any foul smells. Tuesday morning, still nothing and I head off to school. OK so really, this ISN'T as bad as my dad made it out to be... Tuesday afternoon, get home from school. I walk in and I kid you not, I ALMOST hurled. The smell finally hit my like a sack full of marbles. I fell to the ground, grasping to find anything to hold and stabilize my self with until I realized that I didn't need to be stabilized. Instead, I ran to the bathroom to get the can of potpurri Glade. I sprayed it not less than a foot in front of my and could smell NOTHING. The rotting smell was so powerful that a can full of Glade couldn't stop it. Eventually this led me to eventually go to the store and spend $50 on air fresheners including an Oust fan, spray, and wall mounted sprays, and enough incense to qualify my as a Buddhist monk. My house now smells like a cocktail of the finest air fresheners this world can give you and also that store called Earthbound at the mall (not REALLY a good thing). I also sleep with a gas mask on at night in order to not get contaminated...

Bad news is: Dad called all the exterminators and they can't do anything... Good news is: the smell should go away in two weeks... OK let's face it. There ain't no good news. So for now, it's Oust, incense, and gas masks for me!!! Woohoo! There's nothing better than coming home from California to a house that smells of decaying varmint...

PS: 1,000 points to me for using the word "rancid" in the title...

If you don't know the definition of "rancid," first, slap yourself for not knowing your vocabulary, and then check it out at http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=rancid