“The rankest compound of villanous smell that ever offended nostril.” **

“I smell garbage,” I said. From his seat outside in the carport/terrace/studio, Jack replied, “It’s not me!” Jack can’t smell and doesn’t care much when I complain about odors. There was a noxious smell in the kitchen a few months ago that lasted for days. I found out why when my vacuum wand came out from behind the kitchen stove with a petrified lizard attached to it.

You’re probably thinking: You should vacuum way more often. I agree. That’s why I don’t have a cleaning lady anymore. But that’s another story.

Last year, when we moved in, a pig farm sat 100 yards to the east of our house. “I had to leave the house sometimes, it got that bad,” said a former tenant, when I inquired as to whether the pigs stunk. But I called another erstwhile tenant, who said she never detected a whiff of the pigs. “In fact,” she said, I used to like to tie one on, go get a piglet, take him home and wash him.” I knew I’d like her if we ever met when she said that.

Little piggies

The new neighbors

So it wasn’t the cows I smelled, and it wasn’t the new compost heap, next to the meadow where the horse runs. I wondered, what the hell is that smell? Then I remembered what Jack had said earlier: “Noir (the huntress cat) might have brought something in.” He added, “I looked for it, but didn’t see anything.” Uh oh, I thought.

“Jack,” I said, a little later in the day, “something in here smells gross. We’re talking seriously repulsive. Let’s look again.” Within moments, I found the culprit behind my computer desk. “Jack!” I screamed, as I ran into the kitchen, away from the offending corpse, “Can you get this thing out of here?”

Between my desk and the baseboard, lay a very dead black rat. Noir stood by, licking her paws and looking at me as if to say, “What? You don’t like my present?”

**William Shakespeare, The Merry Wives of Windsor