Hidden "Treasures"

Alright, today's a two-fer blog day because I had to share this with you all.

Luke says I have the nose of a 'coonhound. He's right. I smell things far better than he does, and much sooner too. Usually, I can smell smoke, bodily functions (toots), vomit, etc. before anyone else in the crowd. I've had an unusually heightened sense of smell all my life, then I got pregnant and got the super-hyped sense of smell you get during that phase of your life. With most women,this souped up smelling goes away after childbirth, with me it did not. I can smell nastiness from yards away. It's a special gift and I'm still trying to decide if it's a blessing or a curse.

Anyway, for about the last week I've smelt this odor in our kitchen. It's progressively gotten stronger and was primarily located near our stove. We keep a small trash can the cabinet beside our stove so I've just been writing the smell off to stinky trash. Last night, I took out the trash and left the door open so that the cabinet could air out. This afternoon, it still stunk pretty bad. Upon inspection with my sniffer, I discovered that it was not the cabinet, but rather the actual stove. I assumed that there was a dead mouse or something under our stove and found the flashlight to inspect further.

I'm not a sqeemish person. Bugs, mice, dead animals, they really don't gross me out much. I mean, they'r not my favorite things, but I can handle it. Our stove is a drop in range, meaning that it doesn't slide in and out for easy cleaning (not that I clean under my stove that often anyway, as you will soon discover).

So picture me, the bottom of the stove popped off, on my hands and knees looking under our stove with the worst flashlight on the planet. I scan the underbelly, of the stove, expecting at any moment to see a partially decomposed mouse. Instead, I see this glass jar hanging down on the left side, so I remove it. Apparenly, Jenn-Air ranges have a drip feature. They also have drip jars to catch the "juices." This drip jar wasn't appetizing, but it also wasn't the source of the foul odor. I move it to the sink and resume my search. I contiue to scan reaching the right side of the stove. There it is...the nastiest thing I might have ever seen in my own house.....another drip jar, 1/4 of the way full with "juice" and the inside covered with MAGGOTS!

Let me explain to you the basis for my hatred of maggots. Like I said, I'm not fearful of bugs, (you know, except scorpions, tarantulas etc.) so spiders, flies and other creepy crawly things do not bother me. However, when I was in junior high school I lived with my Dad and step-Mom. Each week, one of my chores was to take the trash to and from the curb for trash day. Now, if you've ever been in the south you know the humidity is in full force in the summer. If you've ever been to Arkansas in the summer, you know that no other place on Earth can rival the humidity in the air mid-summer. Each week, the trash would stink to hi-heaven. Each week, my job was to wash out the trash can. Why did it need washing you ask? Well, in high humidity places, flies and mosquitoes breed like rabbits. Each week, our lovely curb side trash can had a fresh crop of maggots. Each week, it was my job to exterminate them. Compound that with the fact that we almost always had Spagetti on trash night (not sure why exactly) and you can see why I loathe maggots. My little sister was about 3 years old at the time and needed her spaghetti cut up for her....yes, making it look just like a bowl of bloody maggots. Gag! I rarely ate dinner on trash day.

Okay, back to this afternoon. I remove the maggot filled jar from the bottom of the stove. Keep in mind that we have lived in this house almost a full year. Until today, I had NO IDEA that my stove came with a set of drip jars that were catching our drippy goodness.

I move the jar over to the sink, thinking that I will put all of these special creatures and their nastiness down the garbage disposal and give them a good dicing. My friend Paige was standing by watching the whole thing. As I sat the jar on the counter, she asked:

"You want me to do something with that?"

I replied, "No, I'll take care of it after I finish washing these bottles."

To which she responds, "Well, you might wanna do something soon, they're crawling out the top."

I glance over, only to see 1 little maggot wriggling it's body out of the opening of the jar. I scream, just like a girl. I'm not much of a screamer, really. Very ugly words go through my mind and I run, and I do mean run, from the jar screaming,

"Get it out! Take it out! Paige, get that out of here!"

Graciously, she takes the maggot filled jar outside, dumps it somewhere (I'd rather not know) and washes it out with the water hose. Guess I'll check my drip jars weekly now.

Have I mentioned that I hate maggots?

Oh, and remember this post? I think I've found out why we have such a problem with flies.