My husband has spent much of the last week wrinkling his nose in distaste every time he comes into the kitchen.
“Why does it smell of dead people in here?”
“It’s probably the bins. I’ll take them out.”
It’s not the bins.
My husband has a sense of smell akin to that of a blood hound and can locate an abandoned nappy in minutes. He tracks the smell of corpse to the microwave and beckons me over.
“Smell it.”
“No.”
“Go on – smell it.”
I don’t want to smell it. I have a frighteningly over active gag reflex which causes me to retch at the slightest unpleasant odour. I was once caught in a lift to the seventh floor of a hotel in Lisbon, with a fat man who passed wind as I got in at the ground floor. I managed to fall out at the fifth just before I was sick in my hands.
I lean near the microwave and hold my breath, whilst pretending to take a huge sniff.
“Nope, nothing. I think it’s your nose.”
“It’s not my nose.” He replies indignantly. “Why would I have the smell of dead people in my nose?”
“Try some Vicks.” I suggest helpfully.
Shortly afterwards I inadvertently stand too close to the microwave and catch a whiff of the most unholy stench I have ever smelt. It does indeed smell like the aroma of a thousand corpses rotting in my kitchen. How have I not noticed this until now? I call my husband back, gagging slightly as I do so.
“It’s not your nose.” I concede.
Further investigations reveal a dead mouse in the housing of the built-in microwave. I’m not sure how long he’s been there. Long enough to smell, not long enough to decompose, if that sheds any light on it. I have no idea how he got there, but I worry that it was some sort of bet. I’m concerned about all his little mousey friends, mounting a search party and wondering whether they were wrong to have dared their compatriot to microwave his tail.
The mouse is consigned to the dustbin.
“What’s for supper?” My husband asks.
“Microwave meal.”
We get take-out.