My husband eats hot dogs. Lots of hot dogs. I can’t stand the things. Ever since I was in the third grade and my teacher, Mrs. Elkin, took us on a field trip to the hot dog factory, I can’t touch the things. So, I don’t give my husband many restrictions on diet or behavior, but I do ask that he not eat hot dogs.
It’s not even that I ask him not to eat hot dogs. I ask him not to cook hot dogs in our house. Have you ever walked into a house where someone has been boiling those chipped up intestinal wraps? It reeks. I can’t stand it.
So, my husband not only eats lots of hot dogs, but he insists on cooking them in the house. Normally, it’s when I’m not home and he has the day off, but I can still smell the stinking things hours after he’s eaten them. I come home from a long day at work, wanting to unload my laptop, turn off the cell phone and simply relax. But that’s not possible when your house smells like hot dogs.
He tries to mask the smell. He turns on fans, opens the windows, sprays floral air freshener, but, in case you didn’t know, hot dogs are impervious to air fresheners. People say Twinkies and cockroaches will survive the holocaust. I don’t think that’s true. I think it will only be hot dogs and cockroaches. Hot dogs, cockroaches, and yellow mustard.
Ugh, that’s another pet peeve of mine. Yellow mustard. I can eat the spicy browns, the hots, the stone ground mustards, but I cannot, and will not, stand for yellow mustard. Hot dogs and yellow mustard joined together emanate a smell that can only be compared to Richard’s gym bag. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks. Richard’s gym back after it’s sat in the trunk for two weeks in August. I’m telling you, it smells that bad.
So, I came home the other day, it was a Thursday, and the whole house had that meat filler, yellow mustard funk hanging everywhere. It greeted me before I could set my bag down by the front door. I could tell he’d taken his usual measures to mask the smell, Lysol disinfectant spray, fans whirring, windows open, letting the salt breeze infiltrate the room. So, now the house smelled like a salt-cured-flower-stuffed-hot dog with yellow mustard. I dropped my bag right there at the threshold. I could hear the heavy thunk of my computer on the hard wood floors and a sharper crack like the breaking of Lincoln Logs. “Fuck,” I said, not taking the time to survey the damage. It was a work computer anyway and if anything was wrong I would just put in a requisition for a new one. I was due anyway.
***That's all I have for right now. I'm hoping this leads me somewhere.
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