The Smell

Last night, after J got home from work, he wanted to take a shower.  Perfectly reasonable.  

He also wanted to take a HOT shower.  Again, not an unrealistic expectation. 

  

However, apparently it was on this occasion, because there was no hot water to be had in the entire house.  After a few snippy remarks to each other about whose fault it was or wasn’t, we remembered that our home is still under the home warranty that we purchased when we closed on the house.  The next morning, I called the warranty company, and was pleased to find that they were able to send a plumber to our house that afternoon.  What wonderful customer service! 

  Before  the plumber arrived, we first had to do some finagling.  Both Toffee and Max had to be put in the kennel, because we can’t teach them to not jump and knock over our guests.  I also needed to entertain G1 and G2 while the plumber was here, so that I was able to participate in an adult conversation.  And since they hadn’t yet taken their bunnies out for some exercise and play time, this was the perfect opportunity.  OK, now that I had a game plan, it was time to put it into action.  

Catch the dogs, drag them into the kennel.  Whoops!  One got away, so lock up the first one, chase the fugitive through the house, grab by the collar and shove in the kennel.  But make sure you don’t let the first dog out in the process.  Get out the baby pool, some lettuce, and a towel so that the kids can play with their bunnies.  Go into the mud room to grab the bunnies and hand one to each boy, making sure that they are safely set up in the family room.  Might as well take this opportunity to clean out the rabbit hutch, too.  I got too caught up in doing that, and before I knew it the plumber was ringing the doorbell which set the dogs into a barking frenzy.  I welcomed him into the house, showed him the hot water heater (which is located in the laundry room with the dogs’ kennel), assuring him all the while that they can’t get out, and they’re very friendly, just jumpy.  He seemed happy enough to just get to work, and quickly told me that our water heater is super old and leaking internally, causing the electric components to short out.  “No problem”, he tells me.  “Your warranty covers a new one.” 

Wahoo!  This is my lucky day!  

The plumber leaves to go pick up a new water heater, and I get to making the kids a snack and setting up a movie for them.  The plumber comes back, and gets to work removing the old water heater.  After a few minutes, I hear “Oh my god!” and the dogs start barking again.  He comes around to the kitchen and says “Um, ma’am?  I got your old water heater out, but… um… Well, there was a dead lizard in your pipe.” “In my pipe? How?” “Ma’am, I have no idea.  I’ve never seen that before.  But… it’s been in there for a long time.  That’s what The Smell is.”  Just as he said that, this smell unlike anything I have ever experienced in my life comes crashing into my kitchen.  I was punched in the nose by this horrible, noxious odor.  I’m pretty sure I turned 3 different shades of green before I could cover my nose and mouth.  I ran to the windows and doors and threw them open – who cares if the air conditioner is running?  I had to get The Smell out of there!  I asked him “Wait a minute, if it was in the pipe, was it in my water?”  To my horror he says “Yes ma’am.  Every time you turned on the hot water.”  

I couldn’t even process this information.  I refused to process this information.  

We went on with the afternoon, got a new top-of-the-line water heater installed, and the plumber tells me “This is a great water heater, you’re going to save a lot on your electric and water bills!  Oh, and by the way, I left the lizard in the corner of the closet.” And then he left.  As soon as he was gone, I ran to the laundry room to get rid of the lizard and free my house from this smell.  As I turn the corner into the room, out comes Toffee, looking very guilty.  I peek into the closet and see that the lizard is gone.  Toffee ate it.  A rotten, decomposed, nasty, stinking lizard body.  She’s disgusting.  I could just vomit.  I went through the house and went through an entire bottle of Febreze, and when that ran out and hadn’t made a dent in The Smell, I started in with an aerosol can of disinfectant spray.  The kids fled to their rooms and closed their doors, leaving me to cook dinner and suffocate in The Smell.  When J got home from work, he figured that it was just that he had been at work all day – he never suspected the true origin of The Smell.  After we had eaten, and were relaxing around the dinner table and discussing our day, I told him the truth about The Smell.  I could see the realization hit him.  Every time we used the hot water.  Washing dishes.  Washing our clothes.  Washing ourselves.  Lizard water.  Every single time.  Lizard water.  We vowed to take extensive showers that night and to wash all of our clothes and dishes immediately.  Just as we were about to finish this conversation and pick out a movie to watch with the kids, the dogs came back into the room with us.  Pow!  The Smell returned with a vengeance.  “It’s coming from the DOGS!” I exclaimed.  “I need to brush their teeth. Now.” 

Now, brushing their teeth is interesting.  Lots of experts say to start teaching them to tolerate having their teeth brushed when they are puppies, and I agree that this is the way to go.  However, this is not the way I went.  Instead, our teeth brushing occurs only when J can catch a dog, pin it down, and hold the mouth open while I brush their teeth as quickly and efficiently as I can.  This time was no different, except that having the dog THAT close to me made The Smell even worse.  Once we finished brushing both dogs’ teeth, we discovered that this hadn’t totally abated The Smell.  It was going to have to be a bath.  Max is just a treat to bathe.  He is a Spaniel, so he willingly jumps into any and all water and his bath is no different.  He happily hopped into the tub, and relaxed against my legs as I scrubbed his body from nose to tail.  When I got his head wet – the primary location of The Smell – he decided that this was the perfect time to do it.  All dogs do it.  They shake.  And when he shook, he shook right into my face.  I could almost see tiny particles of rotten lizard hit me in the face.  I actually started to cry. This was just the very last straw to my day.  All of a sudden, I hear J start shouting “What are you doing?! You’re getting me all wet!”  At first, I thought he was making a joke about crying, but then I realized that I was actually getting him all wet.  I had the shower spray nozzle in my hand, and when I jumped after Max shook, I turned the nozzle around and was dousing J! There was really nothing to be said, I mean, I just sprayed the guy with water, I couldn’t exactly act like it hadn’t happened.  So we finished up bathing Max.  We towel-dried him and released him into the house.  

Then it was time to wrangle Toffee.  Toffee is a diva.  Toffee hates the water.  She hates baths, rain, puddles, and anything that makes her even remotely damp.  God forbid she actually gets wet.  This is her, in the only place in the house where she will lay down.  See? Diva.

 We caught her and had to wrestle her into the bathtub where she quickly became the most pathetic mess I have ever seen in my life.  Her giant brown eyes blinking in the water, her ears turned down, her head hung low, her tail firmly tucked under.  The whole time I was scrubbing her I kept saying “This is what you get for eating lizards.”  After she was dried off and released into the house, she and Max did exactly what all dogs do when they’ve had a bath – run around the house like lunatics, growling, barking, nipping at each other and generally causing a ruckus.  

At least we finally got to the source of The Smell.  Now the house smells like dog shampoo, Febreze, and disinfectant spray.  At least I got a new water heater out of it, right?