Journey into the cupboard

I had a wonderful weekend. I went on a fairly major road trip and could not have asked for better weather or road conditions (Although I only recommend spending 22 hours of a 48 hour trip in a car if you are with really fun people - like I was). I got to visit with an old friend who has a 6 week old. I was sitting there feeding the little angel and I realised that I had never fed a baby before! Never in my 24 years can I remember doing such a task. And to be honest, I do not even usually hold babies. And I have not really been around that many of them. And I tend not to be that excited when everyone is talking about how sweet or cute a new baby is. So I was terribly surprised this weekend to find myself almost falling for the little one. I held her whenever possible and even got excited about getting my very first burp out of a baby. And the next day I started looking at the parents with young kids in church and feeling a twinge of "I want that someday soon" feeling. I am glad too - I always knew I would want kids someday and I hoped that at some point it would be something that I felt instead of just knew.

So yes, wonderful weekend. And upon returning (just before midnight) from the super fun car ride, I opened the door to my house as any normal exhausted person would do. All I wanted was sleep. But instead the fumes hit me immediately. The house stank. I looked quickly in my cooler to see if I had left something perishable from my last work trip. I had not. I could not quite place the smell so I unpacked the car, checked my email and basically did everything I could to put off searching for the smell. It was the kind of smell that I could tell with certainty was going to require some cleaning effort. Finally when I could put if off no longer I went to my kitchen (which I had cleverly deduced was the source of the smell) and all of the sudden my socks were wet. I looked on the floor and immediately it clicked. Vinegar. Now, I hate the smell of vinegar. When I walk into a washroom or a hotel room that has been cleaned with vingear I want to leave. I followed the vinegar trail to the lazy susan in the corner and found my entire shelf in a pool of vinegar from a bottle that had tipped over and leaked. Yuck. I threw out all my food that was not in plastic or tin and sopped up the standing vinegar. I tore all the labels off the cans (and in my haste did not think to mark them - eating at my house should be an adventure for the next couple of months) and washed anything I could save. The paint was bubbling on the shelf so I wiped most of it off. I dumped the remaining vinegar down the drain (even though there really was not anything wrong with it - it was an emotional reaction not a logical one). Then I took the garbage out, threw the towels and my socks in the washing machine and Mr. Cleaned and then bleached the shelves, floor and anything that could possibly smell of vinegar. I collapsed into bed almost in tears. What a horrible way to end a wonderful weekend.

I think the smell has finally subsided but it will be awhile before I will buy that stuff again.