catastrophe

I came home from a faculty meeting tonight, in a good mood and ready to be on duty, but when I walked into the kitchen I ran into my stone-faced husband and knew I was about to hear something not-so-great.

Remember in my last post when I mentioned that our apartment smells less like dead animals than it did a few days ago? Well, about a year ago we bought a chest freezer so that we could buy an eighth of a local, grassfed cow and feel all good about locavore, money saving, healthy food-eating selves. And it was delicious, and we did.

Turns out that freezer broke, just plain shut down, but we're not really sure how long ago. What we do know is that instead of healthful, fresh beef, we now had a whole bunch of rotten cow (and chicken) floating around in delightfully stinky pool of blood.

Now, I wasn't brave enough to look at or smell it, but poor J said he had to back away and lean on a chair the first time he looked in

So, outside the freezer went, and on went the gloves and headlamp and mask, and my brave husband contended with the scooping and the rinsing while I handled the bleaching and scrubbing.

We may or may not have caused permanent damage to our hose/pipes by using the water in the freezing weather, and I'm sure the several cars that drove by are under the impression that we are not only murderers, but stupid ones at that. The new faculty member who just moved in a week ago may agree.

The best part of the night was when, in the midst of the cleanup, the Red Cross called and asked me to donate blood. I lied and said I wasn't home because I just couldn't handle the humor.