2916 Stink

Tuesday, March 30, 2010

Teach a child to be polite and courteous in the home and,
when he grows up, he'll never be able to merge his car onto a freeway.

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Saturday, when Daughter and I were walking around Red Bank, she needed a bathroom. She volunteers with Hospice at the hospital, which was right around the corner, and she's known there, so that's where we went.

Half a block from the hospital, I was overcome by a stench. It smelled like rotting restaurant offal. The worst rotted garbage smell I'd ever experienced, and I've often taken stuff to the county dump. It was so bad the air was thick. I was starting to retch.

Now, I normally don't mind odors. I love the scent of fresh sweat on a man. I like a whiff of skunk on a summer breeze. I like the smell of manure spread on spring fields. But this stench was literally making me sick. My face may have turned green.

It got worse the closer we got to the hospital.

It turns out it was the mulch that had been spread on the extensive hospital flower beds.

The mulch looked like ordinary finely shredded bark. The women behind the reception desk said it was probably insecticide added to the mulch.

Now, I've got a whole bunch of questions. What do the hospital's neighbors think of the smell? Is it safe to breathe insecticide that thick? What about patients arriving at the hospital? If my stomach had already been a bit queasy, I guarantee it would be worse by the time I walked in from the parking lot. How long will the smell hang around?

That stuff was BAD!
.