The Stink Coming from the Dryer

Two days ago I was tackling a serious amount of laundry.

Serious because Ellie waits until she has practically nothing left clean before she brings her hamper(s) to the laundry room.

Ellie texted me from school that it had been brought to her attention that there was a significant rip in the bottom of her jeans and she needed me to bring her a new pair.

I had lots of questions but I only asked one,

"Where should I look for jeans because I just put 

400 pair in the wash?"

She told me to look in her room.

Which ended up meaning

  in the pile of clothes on her floor.

She instructed me to send her a picture of which jeans I was bringing so she could approve.

Like she wasn't sitting at school with a large rip in the buttock region of her jeans.

I put her name on a post-it note and stuck it on the jeans in a grocery sack and drove to the school.

It wasn't until I saw the humorless face of the woman at the school office that I realized I hadn't prepared what to say.

I saw a table of teenage boys sitting within earshot.

My first instinct was to say,

"My daughter blew out her jeans so I brought another pair."

Luckily, my filter caught that in time 

since "blew out" could mean all manner of things.

Horrid things.

Ellie already is the girl that threw up in English class last year.

She can't be the girl that blew out her jeans too.

I blurted out,

"My daughter needed new pants. So… I brought her… new pants."

Frankenstein would've seemed articulate in comparison.

The lady's eyebrows went up and it dawned on me that I had not done the better thing just a different variety of bad thing.

I turned around, threw the bag on a bench with all the forgotten sacks of lunch 

and practically ran out the door.

I went home and resumed my laundry duties.

As I was pulling clothes out of the dryer I detected a stink.

These were clean clothes.

I took a sniff and they seemed to be absorbing the same stink the dryer was emitting.

Like mildew farts.

I texted Monte.

He did some research and thought maybe it was a build up of lent in our vent pipe 

and he called someone to come clean it out.

The next morning Ellie hollered down the stairs that all her jeans I had washed smelled like death and asked if she could borrow a pair of mine.

First of all, I was flattered she felt any of my jeans were borrow-worthy. 

And the halls of high school-worthy

Second of all, ALL  4 LOADS of laundry 

were a cesspool of stink.

I was busy preparing the house for a spa party some moms and I were hosting to pamper the girl Young Life leaders in our area.

I had moved some furniture in our living room to put three inflatable pool floats for lounging during facials.

I let the worker guy in and his first impression of my house was this:

The tennis ball touch was all Nigel.

My first instinct was to say nothing. Let the guy think this is our thing. A room full of inflatable pool floaties. No. Big. Deal.

But after the school secretary debacle the day before, I didn't have any confidence in my first instinct.

So I overexplained the whole party.

He was super sweet and feigned interest.

Before we even made it into the laundry room he shook his head and said we had a dead animal somewhere.

I told him I'd be upstairs if he needed me.

Shortly thereafter, he came upstairs holding a grocery sack (ironically, just like the one I brought Ellie's "new pants" in).

He said, 

"Those were two of the biggest rats 

I've ever seen."

I'm not sure why, 

but I asked if they were dead.

I think our neighbors could clearly smell that they were indeed dead but I just wanted to make sure.

The rat infestation of Summer 2017 left its mark on me.

The worker explained how the rats entered the vent on the side of our house to probably escape all the rain we'd been having and then slid down the steep vent pipe feeding into our dryer in the basement.

It was too steep and slick to climb back up.

He told me he could tell I hadn't done laundry in awhile because the dryer heat would've cooked the rats and they would not have smelled.

But before I could get mad at the jab at my laundry schedule, he said it was a good thing 

because the decomposing rats let us know they were there.

Really?! 

Roasted rat doesn't have its own kind of distinct aroma?!

It all hit me at once.

I'd been noticing lots of lint in the lint trap and even behind the dryer.

The rats were SO GINORMOUS 

they were plugging up the vent pipe.

 I had 4 loads of clothes upstairs that wreaked of 

cooked-on rat death.

I was hosting a tranquil, peaceful spa party that very night.

And you know what doesn't smell like a spa?

Decomposing rodents.

The worker then went through all the things that would need cleaned and replaced and he gave me a price and asked if he should proceed.

I told him for the love of Pete, yes. Proceed. PROCEED!

I didn't even run it by Monte because,

RATS.

Then I texted a friend who lives downtown that I might be moving in.

As I was walking the worker to the front door after he'd finished and he had been paid, he turned to me and said,

"You know, what you are doing for these girls tonight, 

you will be rewarded in heaven."

I was so caught off-guard that I was struck silent.

This was the man that pulled TWO HUGE DEAD RATS from my dryer vent.

I hope God has an extra-special reward planned for him!

Then I noticed he left the vent piece he had to replace in one of my flower pots by the front door.

It smelled exactly like the graveyard of two huge rats.

Monte came home with the biggest rat traps legally sold and a large bottle of Febreeze.

I quickly rewashed all the wash cloths I intended to steam in the crock pot for facials, 

because the stench of hot, wet, dead rodent all up in your face 

would not bring out ones best calm or relaxing self.

I sent Monte to the garage to get some ice from the refrigerator when his nose figured out where the worker had disposed of the dead rats.

The scent wafted right into the house with him when he said he was walking to the field close to our house.

Yes, he chucked the rats right back from whence they came.

Then he Febreezed the garage like it was his job.

Later, after much diffusing of essential oils and liberal squirts of Febreeze, someone asked me how I got the house to smell just like a spa.

Again, my first instinct was to say something like,

"Well, you start with two huge dead rats and end with Febreeze."

But, I still didn't trust those first instincts so I just said,

"Essential oils. LOTS of essential oils."