Day 10 – The Horror

posted by Momo Fali on November 10, 2011

My 12 year old daughter attended an environmental camp over a month ago. She had to pack everything from t-shirts to a winter coat. Ohio weather is unpredictable. It’s not unusual to run your heat and your air conditioning in the same day.

My kid left, and came home, with So. Much. Stuff.

When she returned, her old backpack, which was used for daytime jaunts around the camp, was emptied and tossed to the bottom of the basement stairs. It wasn’t something that needed to be cleaned right away, because she rarely uses it. So, there it sat, on the floor, until I had room in the wash to throw it in. That was yesterday.

The quilt from her bed was the only companion to the backpack in the washer. I played it safe and cleaned them in hot water, given that her quilt is covered with the hair of our younger dog, who loves to snuggle…and shed…and the basement floor is covered with, who knows what.

When the timer went off, I went downstairs, lifted the washer lid and out wafted the most horrid smell my poor nose has ever come across. I pulled out the backpack and noticed that it was unzipped. Then I removed the quilt to find this sitting underneath.

People, that used to be a sandwich.

Apparently, the backpack wasn’t emptied OVER A MONTH AGO and this thing has been decomposing the entire time. All hail the generic zipper bag that kept the contents from oozing out and stinking up my house…until the washing machine got hold of it. Not until then, was the full power of stench released.

You know, all over what was supposed to be clean laundry.

Speaking of laundry…don’t forget to enter my giveaway from BlogHer and Bounce! You could win a Bounce Dryer Bar and a $50 Visa gift card!

    Comments

  • BusyDad


    I believe we can conclude that this whole adventure represented a net loss for the environment.

  • Amie


    Urgh. Good thing THAT wasn’t one of the two loads your husband recently did…

  • Rhea


    Something similar happened to me…involving a lunch box that should have been emptied. And then a month or so into summer, we start smelling something. Decomposed hot dogs 1. attract flies 2. smell like death.

  • Colleen - Mommy Always Wins


    Well, it does appear that the “zipper” held up pretty well! Could you imagine if it hadn’t?!?

  • Zak


    OMG, I can smell that from here!!!

    My daughter came home with a lighter in her backpack when she was eight. She found it in the gym and thought it was cool. And it still worked. Oy.

  • Melisa


    Blech!!! And I thought doing the laundry of teen boys was bad! haha

  • Alexandra


    Oh.

    I KNOW>

    I found a bagel in a backpack in September, on the first day of school, which meeeeeeaaaaaans it had been in there all.summer.long

    Greener than the green grass of Dover.

  • Tara R.


    I did not need to see that. This is a phenomanon so familiar with teens, a sort of rite of passage.

  • Jim W


    Wow. That is vile!