If It Walks Like a Duck...

Warning: after reading this post, you may find yourself feeling like you need a hot shower or possibly even a quick bath in antibacterial. If you do not have time to take a hot shower or an antibacterial bath, then you may want to save this disgusting tale of grody for another time.

Don't say I didn't warn you.

So I learned two things about myself this weekend. One - I have a remarkably terrible short term memory. Two - I also have a poor long term memory.

It all began on Wednesday morning when I was leaving for work. You see, we have a garbage service that picks up our trash on a nightly basis Sunday through Thursday nights. However, since we had just finished up a holiday weekend, the service had not run since Thursday and the bags of trash had piled up quite a bit.

Being the sweet servant-hearted person that she is, my mother-in-law asked if I wanted her to run the trash up to the dumpster for us before I left for work. But being the stubborn help-refusing person that I tend to be, I told her no thanks, that I would happily take it myself on the way to work.

So I loaded up the back of my SUV with a few bags of 6 day old trash with plans to drop it off at the dumpster on my drive into work.

Throughout the week, there were several occasions when I would hop in my car and think to myself, "What is that smell?"..."Gosh, it stinks in here."...."I wonder if Chris or Amelia accidentally left some food in the floorboard." But instead of fully investigating the smell, I would roll down the window to air out the car and ignore the stench completely.

Skip ahead to yesterday afternoon's weekly grocery run. I had a full cart of groceries ready to unload into the back of my SUV, when I opened up the back hatch and immediately discovered the source of pungent aroma.

That's right. I never dropped the trash bags off to the dumpster. I still had the (now 10 days old) bags of trash sitting square in the back of my vehicle, and by this time they had spent a few days of baking in the hot July sun.

How is it that my short term memory can be so bad that I forget my intentions of taking them to the dumpster in the short time period of loading them into my car and driving past the dumpster which is literally 20 seconds away from me?

And on top of all of this, I sadly have to admit that this EXACT same thing has happened to me before. This was not the first time that I have driven around for a week with hot stewing garbage in my trunk. The last time that it happened, I recall wondering what in the world that awful smell was, even being baffled when I saw bugs flying around my car one day after work.

You would think seeing bugs fly around your garbage-filled trunk would permanently ingrain itself into your memory so that if one day you found yourself again driving around wondering what that foul smell was in your car, you would remember that maybe you should check the back for trash bags.

But no, apparently my long-term memory is just as bad as the short-term.

So, let me give you some free advice on this Monday morning.

If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, then it more than likely is a duck.

And if it smells like hot garbage baking in the sun in the back of your car, then it probably is so take the time to investigate the smell, you idiot. And take some ginkgo biloba while you're at it.

You're welcome.

Now, please go take a shower because this story is so gross I feel like we all need to be cleansed immediately!