Beyond Shame. No. Beyond Beyond Shame.
Greetings from Denial Land! What…moving? I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m not moving in 30 days. I don’t need to pack. It’s so pleasant here when things aren’t in boxes; why introduce that kind of chaos into a peaceful situation? There’s really no way this kind of procrastination could bite me in the ass. NO WAY. I’m being SMART people. S-M-R-T, SMART.
And to demonstrate how irrefutably smart I am, I will tell you about the horrible stench we allowed to take over our apartment. (And, no, it wasn’t me. Shut up.) We went to the farm for my mom’s birthday on the weekend and we came back to a stench. A horrible, horrible stench. A stench that had legs and possibly even a tail. A stench so horrible that I became convinced that something had died, like maybe the cats had killed something and it had lived long enough to crawl under the fridge or the stove before dying and emitting its stink. I even moved the stove and the fridge in search of a mouse graveyard and found an alarming sea of cat hair, but no dead mice.
On Day 1, we took out the garbage, we changed the cat litter, we opened all the windows. Nothing. The Stench had had a few too many beers and decided to crash on the couch for “juss wun night, I PROMISH. I love you guyz man. Hiccuh!” On Day 2, I cleaned out the fridge. Nothing. The Stench looked at me warily but he still didn’t bother rolling back the futon and just kind of lazed on it all day eating chips. On Day 3, I moved the appliances and cleaned up enough cat hair to have to change the vacuum bag halfway through. Nothing. The Stench had moved in and was comfortable enough to wander around in his underwear, lazily scratching his nuts while staring into the fridge and complaining about our being all out of beer.
And then today. Today, The Stench crossed the line. Today, The Stench had wandered into the hallway, stained boxers and all, and made a racket, caused a stink if you will, and I was afraid that the neighbours would start to complain about The Stench bothering them.
The Stench had to go.
I was, truth be told, mortified. We had become Those People. Those People who are such slobs they stink up the apartment building and everyone complains that they never take out their garbage and hiss “How can they live like that?” while holding their noses and shooting accusing glances at their door. As soon as I got wind (heh) that The Stench had been in the hallway, I readied myself to kick The Stench to the curb.
Oh, readers. I’m so embarrassed. We are much, much worse than Those People Who Don’t Bother Taking out the Garbage. We thought that The Stench was uninvited, but it turned out that we had just forgotten that we had invited him. We are…we put…we FORGOT. Okay? WE FORGOT. A certain couple may have had a fancy dinner party a week ago and may or may not have gotten drunk off of their own homemade wine and FORGOTTEN about the roasting pan full of chicken juices we left in the oven after we transferred the bird to a platter. And while I had thought to look UNDER the oven, I hadn’t thought to look IN the oven. We aren‘t Those People. We’re THOSE PEOPLE. (Who? The ones who had their babies taken away by Social Services because their house was so filthy. Ohhh, THOSE PEOPLE.)
Come on in! We may look normal! Hell, right now you could EAT off of the floor under the fridge, which may or may not be normal, but whatever you do, DON’T GO NEAR THE OVEN. That’s where we keep the liquified rotting chicken fat. There’s a chance you may find that unpleasant. If you’re one of those fussy germaphobe types that is. Or a person with a functioning nose. Whatever.
I actually cried. Sure, a little of it was an involuntary reaction to the acrid smell of rotting flesh. But mostly? I cried tears of genuine horror. And defeat. And scalding mortification. Never have I felt such a failure at the Game of Life as when I found that roasting pan full of DISEASE AND HORROR in my OVEN.
