I’ve noticed the strong smell of decay in general in nature but layered in with animal shit and rotting fish or bird carcass trapped in the undergrowth of the lakeshore
Besides that oh lord what else
Which reminds me: the issue with my cat trying to get at something under my couch has been resolved. Yesterday morning I came out of my office to find Rascal guarding a dead mouse. He was not amused when I picked it up by the tail and tossed it outside. However, as I told him, “If you’re not going to eat it or play with it, then out it goes.”
I know it’s not politically correct anymore, but perhaps you can lure him away with a black cat with a painted stripe on its back?
“Mi amor.”
Years ago when I lived in a ground-floor apartment, some kids chased a skunk under the building and then poked it with sticks. You know what happened. The odor in my living room was abominable. I had to rent a motel room for three days so I could at least get some sleep. During the evenings before I headed for the motel, I had to launder every piece of cloth, including cushion covers, about five times. And for things I could not run through the washing machine, it was hand-washing. For both the stuff in the washing machine and the hand-wash items, I used a product sold at the local Pet Smart–I think it was Nature’s Miracle but won’t swear to it; I went through about $50 of the stuff. The thing is, AFAIK, nothing actually gets rid of the smell permanently except time. The stench can last for up to three weeks.
That sounds terrible!
This isn’t even the first skunk related incident. Last year sometime we had a rotten smell I was certain was a gas leak. Called the fire department in the middle of the night and they were less than enthusiastic to tell me it was just a skunk. But they admitted it smelled a lot like gas inside the house.
Makes sense. Isn’t the “gas smell” from sulfur added to the otherwise odorless gas & skunk spray having sulfur as one component?
1Qt. 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
1/4 cup Baking Soda
2 tsp Dawn Liquid Dish Soap.
Much cheaper and works much better.
Be careful to not get it in eyes, and be warned that it foams a LOT, so don’t use my method of mixing power and liquids (covered jar and shake) because you will end up wearing it.
We use mothballs or crystals to keep skunks out from under our sheds, they don’t like that smell.
I’ve always thought that roadkill skunks smell like good weed and things that have been sprayed by skunks smell like a rotting cow.
Ah, wish I’d known that back then. I’m in Beijing now and I guess one good thing is no skunks here.
TIL there are no skunks in Beijing. Ignorance has been fought!
What flavor did you get? I drink a lot of flavored sparkly water, and some flavors are definitely worse than others. The two-flavor combos are especially hit and miss. For example, I recently picked up a pack of orange-vanilla flavored sparkly water. I was hoping for “creamsicle” or “Orange Julius” flavor; but the impression I got on my first sip was more “baby aspirin”.
Strawberry and Mango (two single flavors, not together). I was expecting a sweet drink but couldn’t detect any flavor at all. I might have settled for baby aspirin!
Yeah, I picked up some mango flavored sparkly once- can’t remember the brand, but it was awful. Not sure if I’ve ever tried strawberry flavor. I would think it would be at least tolerable, but you never know. I find my taste changes too- I used to like black cherry flavored sparkly, but now it tastes like cough medicine to me.
I find that citrus single flavors are usually the best- lemon, lime, or orange.
People who ride their bikes on the sidewalk generally suck.
I live in a hilly neighborhood. The nearest main street is a long, medium steep incline.
There are nice wide sidewalks on both sides, and it is also a wide street with generally not much traffic. Because of the hill, I’ll give some grace to folks slowly pumping their way up the hill (or walking it because they’ve given up) on the sidewalk.
But this morning, I had an asshole beep the horn on his electric bike at me as we both headed down the hill. Fuck you, dude.
This months mini rants thread started with USPS, so I’ll contribute another bit:
I stopped buying their bubble wrap mailer envelopess some time ago because they are so expensive, and bought small packs of them from time to time someplace cheaper. Then I stopped needing to use them, so again I haven’t looked at them in some time. Today I needed one, and so I thought I would suck it up and buy one of theirs for $1.99.
They are now made entirely of thin, flimsy plastic film, which is not only not recyclable, but you can’t write on it with anything except a ball point pen. If you have a rollerball with you, or og forbid a fountain pen, you are just SOL, the ink never dries and just smears off. So since I had started writing on it with my rollerball, with very poor success, the clerk took pity on me and pasted a paper label on the mailer so that I could write on it. Thanks USPS, you rock. Must be the rocks in your collective heads (or in the head of your head, the postmaster general). +1 to the local clerk for courtesy, -70 million to whoever’s bright idea this was.
The guy who I warned a woman about has been bailed out on the misdemeanor ( not following police orders) but will eventually have to go before a judge for the domestic violence/ strangulation felonies.
I ranted back in April (may have been some other thread) that shortly before the day of the total solar eclipse when I was going to drive down to my friend’s house in the path of totality my car was diagnosed with a faulty alternator. So to be safe I rented a car instead.
I told the guy at Enterprise that I’d be taking a toll expressway and he said no problem, we have third-party billing for that.
I just got the bill. The toll charge was over $97, or close to three fucking times the cost of the entire car rental!! And no, it wasn’t the fault of Enterprise. Those really are the outrageous toll charges. The administrative fee charged by the billing third party was just $5, the rest was the fucking robbers who operate that expressway, the only one in Ontario, and it only exists because years ago a short-sighted dumbass conservative government decided to make some short-term gains by selling toll rights for what was supposed to be a perfectly ordinary public highway to a consortium of foreign crooks.
I’ve used that toll highway from time to time but it’s been years, and mostly for short distances. I had no idea how expensive it could be. What a bunch of crooks! If I was working and traveled that route for my daily commute, allowing for lower costs due to having a transponder, it would still cost around $14,000 a year just for the privilege of traveling on that particular expressway. This is the kind of money that should be able to pay for a chauffeured limo! How much do you have to earn for that to be a negligible cost? This whole fucking racket needs to be shut down.
Jesus, and I was mad about my $14 invoice fee on the Illinois Tollway.
That is literal highway robbery.
Good news and bad news.
Good news, after numerous complaints about lack of transparency from sexual assault service providers, MDHHS extended the deadline on those three grants to June 4th.
Bad news is I read the FAQ they finally posted today and it’s even more work than I thought. 
(SUPER good news: my niece was born this afternoon. I am an Auntie! Let the spoiling commence!)
Yes, i have. i will say it is a biteasier when they dont slap the lable over the perforation…
Here in the Great White North, despite it still being springtime, my garage is no longer suitable for storing spring water or soft drinks. It’s not that they’re no longer kept cold, it’s that the heat contributes to spoilage.
Normal seasonal temperatures at this time of year are around 20°C (68°F). For the past few weeks it’s been hovering around 25°C (77°F) and this has been typical year after year. Today it’s 29°C (85°F) and the A/C is on for the first time this year.
This may not seem remarkable to y’all in the southern US, but this is the Great White North. And it’s been this way every spring for the past decade or more.
P.S.- I understand that global warming is a “hoax”. 