A loud noise may wake you from a peaceful sleep and trigger several hours of insomnia. A bright light may make you wonder who's coming up the driveway.
Taste and touch are usually applied to items under your control and so an unpleasant experience there is generally brief and well understood.
Smell is different. There can be great mystery in smell.
One such mystery is at play as I write, although the evidence has diminished greatly for the past two days.
In my bedroom, about three days ago, an odor reached its zenith. For intensity and area, I'd rate it an 8 of 10, with 10 meaning I'd have to sleep in another room. For pungency and foulness, again, 8, for it had a vigorous and repulsive presence like some of the fancier cheeses. But like those cheeses it had a quality about it that you might admiringly call "boldness" and maybe a faint chord of sweetness that may make you a bit curious as to the taste.
I have a wary admiration for cheese. It is clear to me that bold and delicious flavors are to be found among the great cheeses of the world. Yet to eat many of them for their flavor would be, for me, much like bungee-jumping for fun. Just more than one of my constitution craves.
To return to the mysterious odor in the bedroom, I will say that at first I assumed the blame entirely for myself. It is entirely within the bounds of reason that I should suspect myself of having left something "perishable" laying about for far too long in some forgotten corner of my room. I've lived with myself long enough to know this. That is why I asserted to Heidi that it must be the shirt that I had overworn and left in the corner.
This explanation being wholly believable, we hit the lights and went to sleep.
The next day, however, the smell was more intense than ever. Enough so that Heidi decided to take action and removed the offending garment at once to the laundry room along with several others which might also have been suspected of creating the olfactory caucaphony.
Still, with the obvious culprits removed, the smell grew intense by an order of magnitude.
You may suppose that I am going to carry on and explain how I solved this riddle and wrap this entry up in a tidy bow. Should you suppose that, you will now be treated to a rude surprise.
As yet the source of the odor remains undiscovered. The intensity has flagged remarkably in the past two days and leaves open the possibility that this mystery may go unsolved for quite some time due to lack of available evidence.
Should the facts reveal themselves, dear reader, you will be the first to know.
5 comments :
You are too funny James!
My guess, the remnants of a misguided mouse. I can still hear my Mom explain about the mouse in the thermos, kerplop!
I agree with the above commenter: mouse remnants can take on all of the odoriferous characteristics of which you so colorfully write.
Keep looking.
Mystery solved!
It was the felt-soled boots I bought for climbing the wet metal roof.
They had been placed in my closet while wet and mildew ensued.
Glad to know that! Whew, I bet you all are sleeping better now.
Darn!
I was expecting something much more sinister and intriguing -- something like an infected finger from an "old war wound" -- The imagination of possibilities is staggering!
Oh, well! Better luck next time.
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