Sunday morning I wake up and get my coffee. Something smells a little off in the kitchen. The cream smells Ok and doesn’t defile my coffee. I look in the garbage. Some emptied ashtrays, an empty box of Corn Flakes. Not that. I throw out the garbage anyway.

I open the fridge and check the milk. The milk, also, is unoffensive. I have a cupboard of miscellany. Some rice. Some balsmic vinegar. A half-drunk bottle of red wine. I empty the cupboard looking for the horrible stink. Nothing there.

I look under the sink. Nothing offensive. At least nothing that smells offensive. I wash out the inside of the sink as well but that doesn’t eradicate the smell. Now it smells like lemon-scented nasty.

I check the fridge again. My coffee is getting cold but I am obsessed. I have something like five eggs. They must certainly be old but they don’t smell. I empty nearly all of the fridge when I find this little bit of cheese. It was indeed this little bit of cheese, formerly Swiss perhaps, that was putting out the forcibly noxious stench.

Of course, rather than throw it out immediately, or hurl it insanely off the balcony, I document it first. I have since cast out the bit of old cheese. I need to buy some baking soda. This bit of cheese has strangled, choked, and killed the baking soda I had.

SS