A Fishy Smell

For the past few days, there has been a suspicious smell lurking within the kitchen walls. My nose, failing to pick up the scent like a Bloodhound, gave up and the rational mind took over...to dismember my stove. My stove was poked and prodded. Hot water was used to try to sterlise the smell to death. Vanilla essence and lemon cleaners were used as a drowning agents.

The freaking smell still lingered.

All this time, I thought that the stove was the culprit. Figured that it could have been by some accidental means, that a piece of food may have dropped within the deeper crevices and gone bad.

No.

The stove wasn't the culprit. The oven was.

My nose played detective again. Sniffing took over, and like a meter...my sensors read "PUNGENT...DISGUSTING...FEAKING HELL...GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE...LEAVE IMMEDIATELY..." when I opened the oven door. The whiff of the smell, could pretty much be used as a replacement for ammonia salts that are commonly used to stir someone up from unconsciousness. I say, it could just possibly wake up the dead.

Being the curious creatures that we humans are, of course, the natural reflex was to open the oven door wider and take the tray out to investigate what was radiating that noxious smell. I didn't have to do much to set off alarm bells ringing and having another spontanous reflex to shut close the oven door.

It only took such slight movement of the oven tray to see little white things moving.

MAGGOTS! I must have been in such a state because I ended up swearing...and Gwen does not swear. I soon found myself scampering out of the house and onto the deck, where I found sanity by breathing in the fresh air of the night wind.


My first instinct was to grab the Bygon (Lemon scented)and drown those buggers.
Lesson one: Bygon doesn't do a hell alot to maggots.

Second instinct was to grab the phone and run to the only other person that I know that would have way more kitchen exprience then me, my mother.
Lesson two: You can always count on your mum. Heat kills maggots. e.g. turn on the oven, or pour hot water. I chose the latter option for obvious reasons.

Third instinct was to find all the friends that I could gather to rant and rave (and by this I mean bitch), about my unwanted find.
Lesson three: Like how you can never find a taxi when you need one, friends can be that way too. The agony.

Fourth instinct, no, more like a relevation...I am the only one at home and it's my turn to clean the house this week.

My dissection kit finally came out from it's dust laden hideout, and it was put to use in all it's glory, for what it was destined to be made for, it's calling...picking up maggots. Tiring task it was. I was like a surgeon, deftly armed with her fine point needle pincers, relying on her sharp acuity and fast reflexes, to stop those spasmodic worms in their tracks.

Okay they weren't all that fast, the heat must have somehow knocked them out a little...but still, it wasn't all that a pleasant event. The only reason why I couldn't use the most practical of all equipment i.e. a broom and a dustpan, was because it was in the oven, and some might have got trapped within those bushy bristles, and I didnt want to suffer the repercussion of an unexpected visitor in time to come.

So, the next 3 hours saw me in scrubs...or rather...saw me scrubbing like hell. If anything, I would say our oven should be sporting a new epidermal layer.

BUT THE SMELL STILL LINGERED ON!!!!

Now, the new resident of the oven is half a lemon with with the other half as a sour neighbour in the drawer below.

I certainly do hope that the lemon does work, for my sake, the oven's sake and most of all the culprit's sake (who happend to be the brain child behind the use of the all powerful lemon).

Baking for me will never be the same again.

4:07 PM ·