Thursday, December 29, 2011

Meat Juice

It's been a Knecht Fest up in here.  The whole fam is together and we've been yukking it up all week.  Tonight we decided to let other people in on the fun and invited fifty or so friends to come over and celebrate the arrival of the newest Knecht, wee baby Levi, who is super-duper cute.  So all day we were cleaning and cooking and generally getting ready and then for several hours tonight we entertained and laughed and laughed and laughed.  And then everyone left and we sat around and watched Gina and Chris open all the presents and the real laughing began.  Because our goal as a family is to make each other laugh.  We are experts at this.

By the time we finished laughing and cleaning up and made it home we were sufficiently done in.  But I still managed to trudge upstairs to water my neighbors' plants and when I walked inside I was hit in the face by the smell of rancid death.  I looked around to make sure there wasn't a dead body anywhere but instead found that their freezer had exploded open and all of the contents had thawed and spilled out, leaving a rather large mess of rotten meat all over their kitchen floor. They are fit as two fit things and I believe eat a very Atkins-y type diet so they had enough meat in that freezer to feed a T-Rex and his family several meals. And now they have nothing, which makes me sick.  And I'm going to have to call them tomorrow to break the news.  And then invite them over for dinner for the next month.

So I went back downstairs and rally the troops (Katie, Casey and Kylea, who are staying with us.) and we gathered trash bags and mops and headed upstairs to take care of business.  While Casey and Katie cleaned up the kitchen Kylea and I made a trip down to the dumpster (note to the people of Las Brisas:  stay away from the dumpster - it is rank.) The bag I was carrying had about 50 pounds worth of formerly frozen meat and was already leaking a bit.  When it came time to hoist my bag into the bin I was struck by how exhausted I was and started giggling over the whole situation.  And then I couldn't manage to lift the bag.  So I summoned all my strength and gave a mighty heave and just as the bag lifted off the ground the bottom fell out of it and the rotting contents inside fell all over my feet.

So naturally we both fell into fits of laughter.  And we started scooping the rotting hamburger and ground turkey and kielbasa up with our hands, in the dark, mind you, and tossing them into the dumpster and all the while we're cracking up because we're so tired and it's so funny.

On the way back to the apartment I could feel my flip flops squish underneath my feet, leaving meaty footprints behind me, and I said what is now in the running for the title of my pending memiors: "I have meat juice on my toes." 

6 comments:

Andrea said...

Only you could turn a gross chore into a laugh fest!

Heidi said...

So grossed out right now, I eat meat (like In N Out once in a while...) but am not a huge meat person, so this post just cracked me up and grossed me out...I can only imagine the smell.

Like a good neighbor, Rachel is there!

Camille said...

I feel nauseous right now, and a little queasy. You 4 deserve every gold star sticker in the world right now.
Blah.

Stephanie said...

While I'm sure your neighbors were disappointed in their loss of meat, I'm sure they were more than grateful that you took care of the meat issue before they got home. Can you imagine coming home off of a vacation to meat juice everywhere? You just saved their lives, and possibly their marriage. And you were able to laugh about it and write a funny anecdote? Why don't you live next door to me?

Rach said...

You have a gift. I would have been cussing and griping about people and their faulty freezers, and it would have taken at least a month before I could look back at it with the least amount of amusement. So kudos. Also, AAAACCCCKKKKK!!! Rotten meat is nasty.

Anonymous said...

I think I can actually smell this post.