Uninvited Guest

The kitchen smelled a little last night, but I though it was just the two dirty dishes in the sink. This morning, I took the Cupcake out to get one of her many shots. When I returned with my traumatized child, I nearly threw up at the door. The smell was nothing short of extraordinary. It was really and truly the most rancid thing I have ever smelled in my life. It's the kind of smell that is so powerful that even while you are refraining from breathing, it still gets to you. It almost knocks you over. It goes down your throat and makes you want to vomit more than you can possibly imagine. I threw my bag down and took Cupcake upstairs.

I realized that Mikey had died the night before. Mikey was a mouse that we had trapped under the stove. He would visit me almost every night. He would stop in like clockwork to peruse the garbage can for dinner. He found his way in through the garage and then through one of the holes for the water lines into the cabinet. We haven't been able to sheet rock up that back side of the studio yet, so there are ways for a little fellow to find his way in. After we finally saw the little fellow make a run for it from the dish washer to the stove, we stuffed towels under the stove to block him in so that we could figure out how to lure him out in the light of day. Mikey didn't like that. We did have every intention of helping him find his way back out to the delightful streets of the Mission District in which we live. We thought we had time. Mikey was a plump little fellow, but he didn't have the stamina.

So, the ridiculous thing was that I found myself with my newborn baby upstairs not knowing quite what to do with myself. You see, the problem is that we're waiting until this coming weekend to actually start sleeping up there so that the polyurethane odor can completely disappear. It's almost all gone, but there's no reason to be exposing the Cupcake to these things if we don't have to. I don't mind her spending short periods of time up there, but sleeping up there is a different story. I found myself having to choose between the rancid studio downstairs with the non toxic mousey smells or the certainly toxic but not that disagreeable of a scent of the lingering polyurethane. Keep in mind that the Cupcake was also feeling a little cranky from her shot. Poor girl. So, we attempted to run errands, jogged back for naps upstairs and finally retired to the studio in the evening with the air filters going full blast and the door wide open. I think that the smell has improved, but I honestly don't really know. I've been back for several hours now, so who knows. I probably smell like a dead mouse. All that I could think each time that I would attempt to venture back into the studio to get various things during the day was, why did they go to the trouble of water-boarding people when they could just pipe in the smell of a pile of dead mice?