‘Til Compost Do Us Part ⁶

by Katrina • Daily Life, Mishaps • Tags: Composting, Family, Relationships, The Husband

Yesterday, Scott and I celebrated 5 years of wedded bliss.

Although if you average everything out, it’s technically been about three years of wedded bliss, a year and a half of “meh”, and six months of “If-you-even-look-at-me-right-now-there’s-a pretty-good-chance-I’m-going-to-shank-you-with-the-toilet-scrubber.”

Please tell me I’m not the only married person who feels this way.

Five years later, no one has actually followed through on the toilet scrubber threat, so I figure we’re in pretty good shape. Also…toilets get way cleaner when you scrub them while you’re angry.

Just saying.

Scott’s family was in town this weekend, so we didn’t have our traditional romantic dinner, which was fine by me. I lucked out with some pretty awesome in-laws, and spending our anniversary with them was a total blast.

Spending our anniversary cleaning rotten compost juice from the trunk of our car?

Not a total blast.

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we?

Scott and I offered to host the family for a day of Smalltown-style fun on Saturday. By the time everyone arrived, our compost bin was practically bursting at the seams. Living in an apartment means we’re forced to drive our bin nearly ninety minutes to Scott’s dad’s house whenever we need a place to legally empty it. As we were about to cook two large meals for twelve people, an empty compost bin for scraps would have been ideal. Yet despite our imperfect circumstances, the King of Composting was somehow able to work his magic, pressing the compost down to make room for eight more pounds of organic material. By the time we drove it to his dad’s place the next morning, it was packed tighter than Times Square on New Years. I swear…the thing had to weigh at least 30 pounds–carrying it down the stairs was like a smellier version of lifting weights.

Things were complicated by the fact that before stopping at Scott’s dad’s place, we drove two hours to watch him compete in a mountain biking race. I recall hearing a thump in the trunk of the car about fifteen minutes into the drive, but assumed it was one of the mammoth salad-filled Pyrex bowls we had packed to share for lunch. Fortunately, the bowls are sealed with some pretty serious lids, so I didn’t think twice about one of them potentially falling over.

Five hours later, and about fifteen minutes from my father-in-law’s home, Scott made a critical observation.

“Something smells like…vinegar.”

“Yeah,” I replied, “I noticed that, too. Uh…is it your feet?”

(If by some off-chance, you saw two adults–one of whom was driving–and a small child heading north on I-94 while smelling each other’s feet at approximately 2:30 pm yesterday, now you know why. The fact that we didn’t get pulled over is nothing short of astounding.)

While I’m happy to report that everyone’s tootsies smelled fresh as daisies, I’m not so happy to say that the culprit was about forty ounces of putrified compost juice.

Putrified compost juice that had baked in the trunk of our car for approximately five hours in 100 degree heat.

Putrified compost juice that, by my estimation, came mostly from some rotten tomatoes and egg shells that were about three weeks old.

We stood there scrunching our faces, trying not to breathe, and wondering how in the world we were going to undo this extremely unfortunate organic tsunami. Finally, I broke the silence.

“Hey, Scott…can you get brain damage from a smell?”

(In case you’re curious, brain damage smells as if Satan himself had rolled about in a vat of cream cheese and cigarette ashes before descending in to the heat of hell and working out for seven consecutive days without so much as a shower of single swipe of deodorant.)

As everyone ran off to play volleyball and prepare lunch, Scott and I were tasked with cleaning up the “compost gravy”. He assured me neurological damage from the odor was out of the question, but I wore a protective mask as a precaution anyway.

Happy Freaking Anniversary.

While I certainly would have hoped to avoid the great compost flood altogether, I’ve got to say, Scott and I made a pretty good team. He removed the lining of the trunk, hosing it down with soap and water, before laying it out to dry in the sun. I threw all of our reusable grocery bags in the washing machine and sanitized the dozens of pieces of contaminated Tupperware. Together, we wiped the rancid sludge from the nooks and crannies of Jolie’s pink dog crate.

We didn’t fight, we didn’t blame, we didn’t even complain. Without any verbal communication whatsoever, we divided and conquered. We didn’t rest until the trunk smelled less like cream cheese Satan, and more like a Febreeze overdose.

We were a team.

A really good team.

As I sat on the front porch, vigorously scrubbing the compost bin with a toilet brush, I wasn’t even halfway tempted to shank my compost obsessed husband with it…partly because I was sure it would be really efficient way to give him MRSA, but mostly because I genuinely love the guy.

Finally removing my protective mask, I started thinking about the nine years I’ve spent with Scott as my boyfriend and husband. Suddenly, I realized the last sixty minutes had been one giant, foul smelling metaphor.

Sometimes, life is a lot like a lot like a compost disaster in the trunk of your car. It sucks, it smells like Satan’s B.O., and it seriously tests the boundaries of your sanity.

But it’s a whole lot easier to handle when you have your best friend by your side.

Love you, Scott.

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