Monday, February 20, 2006
















If you are easily repulsed, don't read this entry. Come to think of it, if you are easily repulsed you wouldn't be here anyway, so never mind.

I took the opportunity today to behave in a veal-like fashion in honor of the exceptionally cold weather. Husband, on the other hand, went into turbo mode and finally hung some shelves in my studio as well as completing other sundry tasks about the house, and he ended up poking about in one of the closets. At one point he actually held up the vacuum cleaner and asked "are you jealous of my girlfriend?" Ah, mirth.

Now mind you, although our large house is pretty full, we haven't by any means filled all closet/storage space, and other than a cursory wipedown of all closet shelves I could reach, I didn't climb on a ladder to see what was on the topmost shelves after we moved in. We moved in in July 2004 and these shelves have remained as they were when we took possession of the place. So today, in what was one of the teenage daughters' bedrooms, husband found the item in the photograph on a top shelf. A ziplock baggie containing a pack of former fat-free Butterball turkey cold cuts that have morphed into some altogether different life form.
Hmmm... hiding food waaaaay up in the closet? Sounds like an eating disorder to me. Husband said it was a frightening combination of the twin towers of ultimate stink: foot and ass, and I decided to take his word for it and not see for myself. You see how that works, kids? Trust your spouse at their word and build stronger bonds. Everyone's a winner.

Anyhoo... it kind of reminded me of the last house we bought, which was a 1910 fixer-upper in a quaint little historic district of a Dallas suburb. As soon as we closed the deal and got the keys, we went over to the house with a crowbar and prised open the hideous false front that had been built around the 7' long Victorian bathtub, but oh there were surprises within. The floor had rotted out below the bathtub tap, and there was a hole through which squirrels had secreted an enormous stash of nuts. At the other end of the tub, there was a false closure on an adjacent cabinet, and someone had left their own stash of 1979 Playboy and Penthouse magazines. The magazines were a bit worse for wear, as they had been exposed to moisture. What made them the most interesting was the ad on the back of one that featured O.J. Simpson coming correct with an afro in a Dingo boot ad. We laughed at these and threw them away, of course. About 5 minutes later someone invented ebay, and 5 minutes after that "someone" killed O.J.'s wife.

Perhaps the nearly ambulatory crap in that baggie would like to join the search for the real killers.

10 comments:

David Amulet said...

Some nasty surprises there ... I once had squirrels eat through my wood siding and make their homes in my attic. Metal screens covering the holes wouldn't stop them--I had to resort to vinyl siding. But I never found a stash of nuts!

-- david

Knight Of The Storms said...

you must have heard the story of half eaten sandwich with image of Jesus (or his mother I am not sure) that fetched unbelivable sum on ebay...therefore I think you should have got creative with your found treasure and earn some extra bucks

phlegmfatale said...

Well then, you haven't lived, David! tee hee

Yeah, I did hear something about that, knight. it's rather disturbing what people fall for, isn't it?

Big Pissy said...

Whoa!!!! Wonder how old that turkey is? That's some NASTY stuff!!!! :(

I can't even imagine the SMELL~ewwwwww

jenny said...

yummy.... mmmm.... looks like dinner!

in the last apartment we lived in, we found french fries and crayons, as well as one lonely fork, in the window sills... and a fancy-schmancy 'pipe' in the kitchen cupboard.

i guess that would be considered a utensil to some.

Heather B said...

Looks like I am scratching turkey off my grocery list!

phlegmfatale said...

Like I said, pissy, I took my husband's word for it. It WAS nasty!

Maybe YOUR dinner, jenny! Scary. So, were the french fries petrified, jenny? Yeah, the pipe WOULD be a utensil to many...

Sorry for turning you off turkey, heather - maybe you can switch to tofurkey.

Rocky (Racquel) said...

A. Thank God for Ziploc!!

B. I'm having an Edith Bunker moment - all I can come up with re: OJ is "Oh my" (including matching Edith face)

Maven said...

Loved this post!!

Beware of false fronts! That could apply towards furniture AND humans:)

Sounds like the discovery of the bagged life form was formula for good times:)

phlegmfatale said...

For real, rocky!

Glad ya liked it nuggetmaven. It did spark a lot of laughter, so I suppose it's good it happened. But extremely strange, nonetheless.