Burned Cabbage...or Dead Body?

Woke up early this morning ready to face the world and Git R Done. About an hour after I ate breakfast, Mom and I were getting ready to run errands and we noticed a rather rank smell coming from our kitchen/laundry room area. At this point I must mention that we live in an apartment complex, if you haven't guessed that already, and our kitchen is "connected" to another person's kitchen. These people also happen to be from another country and happen to like cooking exotic food. Sometimes smelly food. With lots of cabbage in it. So anyway. We figure that one of the neighbors is cooking up a batch of mean home cooking and tried to ignore the stench. But then it continued to get worse...seemingly VERY fast. SO...Mom and I escape out to run our errands leaving the poor dogs and cat to breathe the toxic fumes. On our way past Exotic Neighbor's front door, we notice that there appears to be a swarm of flies gathering...and a few of them are attempting to burrow their way in to the dryer vent. So on our way out we stop by the office and inform the oh-so-polite manager that there might possibly be a dead body in the apartment next to us and we just figured she might like to know since the smell was permeating every nook and cranny of our home. This was at approximately 11 AM. She oh-so-politely said that she would be inspecting some apartments later on and would be oh-so-happy to drop by and find out the source of the impending armageddon. We ventured on to the Y which we ended up joining! **YAY** And after I was all suited up and ready to jump in the pool, I emerge from the shower area, (since I am way too mortified to strip nude in front of total strangers even in a nude-approved locker room), and Mom is dismayed to discover that she has left her bathing suit bottoms at home. (Apparantly, the pool portion of the Y is NOT nude-approved.) So, after donning normal clothing again, and reassuring the membership guru that we did, in fact, adore the Y and we were not disgusted by it and therefore bailing on it after being a member for only a half a second, we made our way home to get her missing bottoms and return to swim. Only...that's not exactly what happened. When we got home, we got out of the car, walked into the breezeway and were literally surrounded by flies! I honestly believe they were trying to form into a battering ram to knock down Exotic Neighbor's door. The smell was almost unbearable. And when we entered our house...well...both dogs and cat were dead...no...just kidding. They were weeping hysterically and begging for gas masks...well, they weren't doing that either, but I bet if they could talk that's what they would've been saying for sure. My gag reflex was in overdrive the smell was so unbelievable. Mom immediately called Miss-Oh-So-Polite-And-Accommodating. (It's 1:30 at this point.) She says, "Oh my, I just got done with my reports. I'll be down there within the hour." Well, the smell was so bad that we were ALMOST positive that she would walk in on a dead body, especially the way those flies were chomping at the bit to get in that apartment...but thanks to years of watching CSI, I knew better. There's no way that smell could have escalated to that point so quickly. Thanks, Gil Grissom. So, I'm guessing Miss Thang was either curious or bored because she was down here in 15 minutes flat with the maintenance guy. I was standing outside when they walked around the corner. HA! That was a Kodak moment! She's like, "What is that AWFUL smell!?! And what are all these flies doing here?!?" Hmmm, Sherlock...that's what we've been trying to figure out all day. Why don't you take your manicured ass in there and find out? So, they barge in there and the next thing I hear is a sizzle and WWWHHHHOOOOSSSHHHH sound. And if I thought the stench was bad before, I was REALLY in for it now...oh dear...the smell that came pouring out of that apartment repulsed me as much as it delighted those flies. I can't even describe the fumes that entered my nostrils. The dogs came running outside at that point. As did my mom who HAD to see what was happening for the good of the apartment complex. I took the dogs behind the apartment building around to the front where Missy Miss had put a thoroughly charred pan on Exotic Neighbor's patio. When I passed by, she was walking back towards the office cursing about how she'd smell like that crap all day. I'm thinking, WOW...how bout all your crap in your HOUSE smelling like that all day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Needless to say, thank goodness Mom forgot her bottoms because Exotic Neighbor decided to leave some home cooking still cooking while he went to work all day. And it was well on it's way to burning and could have burned the apartment building down if Mom hadn't called and they hadn't extinguished it. I say "it", because we still have no idea what "it" is. I'm 99% sure "it" has cabbage in it. And the smoke alarms decided to be lazy today. And now I have a raging headache from smelling whatever "it" was all day long. But a few good things came out of all this. Miss-Oh-So-Polite probably ruined her nails and smelled like burnt ass and cabbage all day. Not to mention she had to say thank you to my mom for calling her which I know irked her to no end. Exotic Neighbor will have stench and ravenous flies in his apartment for a month. AND...I have an uber exciting post today! Stay tuned! We will be moving into the new house in the next month so there might not be as much drama to report! Drink it in while you can.

Moral for today...spare your friends and family...never cook cabbage.