A Rotten Affair

As it is sort of huntingseason going on christmas, it reminded me of a story from last year which I thought I’d share with you.

Last day in school before the holidays they usually sit down and have a shared lunch, and my daughter brought a nicely decorated platter with cold cuts for the occasion. For some reason her backpack were left downstairs with it’s content for a week, and when I found it the leftovers had turned almost completely liquid trapped behind the cling film. The reek was unbearable, and except from the fabric pencil case which could go in the washer, everything else went straight to the bin.

A few days later my brother came visiting from Sweden to spend New Year with us, and I told him about the rotten affair. “Ha, do think that’s disgusting? Listen here, I’ll tell you a story!” And he told us about his friend (let’s call him Paul), who’s a keen hunter. He goes after the big game and therefore needs two, if not three, large freezers to store the meet in, which he and his family then empties after the “first in - first out” principle. Once when they went away for a few days, Pauls brother (we can call him Jack) was in their house doing some work, and related to that he needed to connect his tools to the power supply. He pulled out what he thought was a suitable plug from it’s socket, and even worse, then forgot to put it back again. A long time after this, maybe months actually, the family started to experience some really foul odour emerging from somewhere unknown. They aired the house, and the smell disappeared, and this kept on for a while; short bursts of insufferable stench that blew away again through the open windows. But in the end they just had to figure out what it was, and they searched the house thoroughly. In the basement they found the source of the horrors - meet Bullwinkle, slowly swimming around in his own dissolving flesh! Everytime his hideout was filled up with gas due to his decomposing state, the lid lifted and let out a dose of foulness. Now, that’s revolting if you ask me, but it doesn’t stop there, ‘cause the freezer was too big to carry upright through the door, so Paul handed poor Jack a bucket and a shovel and told him to get on with it. You get the picture? I did, and suddenly my daughters abandoned lunch seemed almost appetizing.

Can we learn anything from this story though? Yes – never forget the moose in your backpack!