A Bad Scents Of Humor

Ron Nagawawa is on leave. This column is from May, 9 2007.

A couple of weeks ago back in late April, our family arrived home after going to church. We were in my wife’s car – the family car – and I parked it outside of the garage. Currently, no one can park in the garage, as an accumulation of family life apparatus is stacked up in there.

In other words, we have too much junk, and I haven’t cleaned out the garage since Christmas. I receive a daily reminder of this since it means my wife has to park outside even when it’s raining. That means ruined hair, and a bad hair day means a bad Ron day.

Anyway, we entered the house through the garage when we all noticed the worst odor you could imagine. Immediately my kids joked, “Oh, Dad!” I returned the accusation, but my wife, although laughing, wanted to find the actual cause of this rancid smell.

That’s when my mom came into the garage and she too said she had smelled it and could not figure out what was causing it. She thought out loud as she sprayed copious amounts of Febreze into the air, “Let’s see, we had fish last week, but nothing leaked from the trash bag.”

I said, “There’s probably a dead rat somewhere in here.” The mention of a rat was everyone’s cue to evacuate the garage immediately. I decided to search for the carcass, as I figured it would get worse before it got better.

After nearly an hour, I finally found the source of the odor. It was an un-found Easter egg that was hidden in a bin of sports equipment. This is pretty graphic and gross, but it was teeming with maggots. I thought that this was just an urban legend. Either way, I had to clean up the mess.

Later that evening, we were at my in-laws’ house for Sunday dinner. Obviously unaware of what happened, my mother-in-law came out of the kitchen and said in a melodic voice, “Ron, I made your favorite – deviled eggs.”