When Life Stinks
Yesterday morning, I got a phone call at 6:20 am from my college aged daughter, Emily.
Mom … something really bad happened.
My heart seized and I held my breath as I listened. Emily explained that she and her roommates were at McDonald’s because they had to flee their house due to an overwhelming smell of skunk. We talked about possible scenarios other than a skunk then I advised she call the landlord but I wondered ~ is the smell really that bad and could a skunk really be traipsing around Baylor University’s campus in the middle of night spraying houses?
Well apparently, yes. It was that bad. The smell was hanging on their clothes, hair, their skin ~ completely sick. And the house was even worse off. A fabulously helpful pest expert was called in and confirmed that a skunk entered the crawl space under the house ~ had a tangle with an unfortunate cat ~ and sprayed under the house. How weird is that?
It took a ginormous ionizer, air purifier thingy to suck all the stinkage out. Gratefully, all the girls (as well as the neighbors) had an excellent attitude about the whole affair and made a party of it hanging out at friends’ houses while theirs was restored to a new normal.
This morning, as I was making beds, I thought about how well the girls handled the situation. About how they really rolled with the whole bizarre scene. So in honor of the awesome roommates at the Phossil (the name of their house) …
4 Things to Remember When Life Stinks:
- Maintain a sense of humor. The girls, though inconvenienced, thought the whole ordeal was wicked funny. And so did the guys next door that suffered the malodorous consequences.
- Realize there is a solution to the problem. Be it a ginormous ionizer or a therapist ~ there is a solution to getting things back to normal. And things will get back to some kind of normal.
- It won’t last forever. When life stinks, it’s easy to get overly fatalistic and believe that life will always stink. But no … nothing lasts forever. Matter of fact, Emily says the house smells like cilantro now which is a much better option.
- When things do return to normal … and all of life is a low simmer of ho-hum chores, appreciate!! Putting away clean dishes, filling the car with gas, running errands, making dinner, and attending meetings can be a very lovely life indeed. These are the best days of all.