After a long flight and a loooooong drive (nothing beats an 8 hour drive after a red eye flight), we finally arrived home. Just minutes before we arrived home, Courtney announced to the girls that everyone needed to pitch in and help get the car unloaded. Exhausted, and knowing he was too, I suggested that we let everyone get to bed and worry about unpacking in the morning. He agreed. (Leaving paradise and dealing with a foot of new snow was enough for one day!)
We pulled into our garage and before we even opened the car doors we could smell something awful. Really awful. Upon entering the house, the horrible smell multiplied by about a thousand. I commented to Courtney that it smelled like a hundred mice had died. We couldn't figure it out. Until we came into the kitchen, that is. The pool of dried blood coming from the freezer was our first hint. When we opened the door, I literally started throwing up. Turns out, a refrigerator/freezer full of food doesn't smell too great after being warm for a week or so. Wow. You can't even imagine.
Because he is so nice and I'm such a wimp, I got everyone situated while Courtney emptied everything into the garbage. Luckily, he had remembered a recent conversation with our firefighter friend who had told us about using Vick's vapor rub in their nostrils on really bad emergency calls. He was right- it worked like a charm. (But it still was really, really stinky- even with that little trick!) We filled our noses with Vick's and tied bandannas around our faces. Oh, and sprayed Febreeze like crazy. Courtney was in the middle of his awful task when he said, "Go up town and get some Febreeze! The commercial says that it "works so good you won't even know you are in this mess"! I bought three cans, and I will tell you what. They are not lying on those commercials- that stuff saved our bacon. (Except not really, 'cuz we had to throw all of that away).
The girls opted to go stay at Grandma and Grandpa's house down the road. I couldn't say that I blamed them, and Courtney and I might have chosen that route too except Samuel was already in bed, lucky guy. So I got them settled, and then returned to our stinky abode and proceeded to spray every inch of our house down a hundred or so times with our new favorite "spring meadow in a can" spray.
(No, this post is not sponsored by Febreeze, but MAN. That stuff is awesome. And believe you me, we gave it a good run for it's money.)
When all was said and done, we opted to duct tape the fridge shut and get that thing outta there. It was the only way. And so it was that three hours after we got home from our 24 hour trip home, we found our exhausted selves heaving our stinky fridge out onto our
front porch. Which reminds me that I have to post that first "home sweet home" picture once more, just so you can get the full effect.
I know you'll want to pause for a minute to take in the magic of it all. You know, there is nothing that says white trash like a front porch that welcomes it's guests with particle board, a duct taped, smells-like-death-appliance, and Christmas lights hanging (literally) from the eaves two full months after Christmas. (Courtney thought we could find an old couch to throw out there to complete our look, but you know. I was too tired.)
Welcome home, family.
In case you were wondering, we opted out of the appliance company "we can pick up your old appliance when we drop off the new" program
. 'Cuz we would have had to scrub it out, that's why. And we weren't even going to open the doors of that thing,
ever again. It was that bad. After a quick phone call, Courtney decided to take it to the recycling company. He thought about running it through the automatic car wash on the way, but decided against that. He backed up his truck, slid that bad boy out at the recycle place, and moved like lightning to shove the shelves back in and slam the door shut when it flew open as it hit the ground. 'Betcha he never moved so fast in his whole life.
And you know what else? He got sixty bucks for it. Now
that is a deal if I've ever heard one.
