The mind is not the first thing to go
Four years ago I had a neighbor that reeked so powerfully of God knows what that I thought I had smelled the doorway to Hell’s outhouse. He was later incarcerated, presumably for impersonating a septic tank. For the last two years, my Albanian neighbors have been cooking up dishes that must surely consist of wet dog fur and old jockstraps (traditional recipe). Truly that was the most noisome odor.
That is, until Tuesday evening.
The Bacchanalian bimbos that live to the right of me concocted the most fetid, noxious stench this side of Hades. Mind you, despite their habit of leaving their lingerie in the hallway, they are rather clean, so the smell roused my suspicions that possibly something was burning.
Perhaps they were suddenly detained by one of those all too common accidents that happen to women in the movies. You know, an accidental bumping of shoulders in the kitchen turns into an instant girl-on-girl lovefest. I know it happens. Constantly. Really. You can’t tell me it doesn’t. Excuse me, I’m digressing…
I knocked on the door and Karen answered, fully dressed for once, and toking on a joint so thick I mistook it for an Arturo Fuentes Double Corona. The weed was obviously a cheap homegrown variety — the type one often sees springing up between the sidewalk cracks outside Detroit’s 3rd Precinct Police Station.
If the smell of the pot wasn’t rancid enough to make a Jamaican sick, then dinner surely was. A starving pack of shrews would shy from this. Broiled Brussel Sprouts. I use the term broiled loosely. Perhaps cremated would be more apropos. The two odors together confected such a fatal fetor that rust was forming on the stovetop and fixtures.
My 41st birthday is this Sunday. They say the memory is the first thing to go. For me, it will be any sense of smell.
