Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Can You Smell That?

I was greeted this morning by the sharp odor of mothballs or something close to it wafting out of our team's teacher-workroom. The refrigerator is in there, and as I put my lunch away, I scanned the windowless room for the source of that pungent aroma. Nothing seemed amiss, and there was nobody nearby to ask, so with a shrug I returned to my classroom one door down, but the scent was strong enough that I could smell it there, too.

It wasn't long before I heard the tale of all I had missed the day before.  Evidently, that antiseptic smell had only recently replaced the stench of death. When, on Monday morning, they were confronted with the unmistakable odor of decay, the other teachers on my team did the sensible thing: They closed the door and called maintenance.

It turned out that four mice had perished under the refrigerator over the weekend. The custodians  removed them, but unfortunately, the odor lingered longer than their remnants remained. The solution? Pink urinal cakes hidden strategically throughout the team room, and it was that smell that welcomed me back to work this morning. Seriously. Urinal cakes.

2 comments:

  1. WOW...I'm guessing no one has eaten in the teachers' workroom this week. On a different note, your sentence fluency creates such a nice flow to the piece. It was one of my favorite slices today!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Well. . . I'd give the custodians an A for creativity with Materials On Hand. But, really. . . it is kind of yuck.

    Did you eat at your desk?

    ReplyDelete