Maniacal, Killer Leftovers

While cleaning my kitchen this morning, I decided it would be a good idea to also clean the refrigerator. I’d noticed a couple of things in the back of it that looked highly suspicious. After I washed up some stray dishes, I tackled the fridge.

And wished I hadn’t.

First off I discovered a bowl of something with foil wrapped around the top. Oops. My bad. I’d put mashed potatoes in it and forgot all about it. However, the fact that everyone in the house seems to push stuff to the back instead of just making appropriate room for an item is the main reason the taters were forgotten.

Next, I found two small butter bowls. I sometimes use these for leftovers that I’ll reheat for part of the kids’ lunch the next day. Things like a cup of peas and carrots or leftover applesauce.

Then I unearthed—yeah, with everyone else’s crap shoved in there it felt like archeology—another bowl, one that made me uneasy. One that gave me a feeling of—dare I say it?—doom.

First, I took the foil off the mashed potatoes. When taters look like wallpaper paste, you know they’ve been in the fridge too long. It got scraped into the dog’s scrap bucket and said bowl went into the dishwater.

Secondly, I removed one of the butter bowl lids expecting to find something like baked beans or chicken noodle soup the hubby had put in the fridge.

WRONG!

It’s a good thing he was at work because I cussed him up one side and down the other. The concoction I de-lidded was soupy, ancient, putrefying tuna salad he’d made and had taken to work. Since he hadn’t eaten it all, he put it in the fridge when he’d gotten home. The man grew up really, really poor, so he has this thing about letting any food go to waste. I once asked him if something left over was green and bubbling would he eat it, and he replied if is smelled okay he probably would. ACK! I am constantly having to throw leftovers out when he’s at work because if he thinks it’s edible—even if it’s been in there a week or more—he’ll argue with me to put it back in the fridge or warm it up for whatever meal is next.

Not going to happen!

Tuna salad, a food I truly detest, disgusts me. Even the smell of freshly made tuna salad turns my stomach, but this leftover toxin? Ugh. Its odor could’ve peeled the varnish off your Grandma Peggy’s best china cabinet. I grabbed a big spoon, held my breath, and scraped that bowl like I had two and half seconds to win ten-million dollars.

The next bowl I approached with caution. As an extra safety measure, I grabbed a hand towel and tied it around my nose and mouth. Seriously, no one wants an Odor from Hell to strike, then faint, and then wake up with said foul abomination splattered all over them.

I slowly peeled the lid off—and then blinked. What the hell was orange with green fuzz?
Luckily it didn’t emanate any odors that would warrant a biohazard suit, so it landed in the trash soon to be taken out of the house. However, the green was a lovely shade and super fuzzy. If I waited another month, I could probably strip it from what I think used to be shells and cheese and then toss it out on the porch for a welcome mat. But no, I think I’ll wait another day to be that brave.

Besides, you never know about mutated leftovers. It would be just my luck to come home, unlock the door while standing on this new, recyclable mat only to have it sprout tentacles and pull me into it’s open maw. And it wouldn’t be nice to terrorize the kids with it as they come in and out the door five thousand freaking times so that all the AC can go out and cool off the blast furnace we’ve been calling the outdoors of late.

Ahem.

Anyway, I washed up all the containers and their lids, tossed the foil into the aluminum bag, and reached for a bowl used for putting fruit out for quick snacks. But there was one problem. There was a bag of li’l red taters in the bottom of it. I’d been hunting for an elusive odor for two days and suddenly found it. A tater gone rabid in the bag.

OMG! It had liquefied.

Bravery where stinkiness is concerned is not one of my best traits. I picked up the bag and raced for the trashcan.

The odor hit me.

It overpowered me.

I went down like a crashing Jumbo Jet.

And woke up ten minutes later splattered in rotten tater. Worse, the fuzzified mac and cheese had crawled out of the trash bag and was gnawing on one of my big toes.

Take a bit of sage advice, gentle reader: always clean out the leftovers! It’s a safety issue.

And since I've mentioned green, emeralds are green, lol. Please take a moment to check out Emerald Fire at the following links. It's book 1 in the Fire & Ice Saga, and I'm really thrilled at how well it's been doing. It's scorching-hot erotic romance full of coolness from ancient history to Norse mythology to faerie lore and more. Not sure? Maybe you've never read erotic romance that's fantasy/historical? How about checkin out this stunning review HERE.

Oh! Another bit of news! Four of my Molly Diamond titles have been nominated for the Beepie Awards at Breathless Press. If you've read and enjoyed my work, I'd appreciate your votes. You can vote up to a total of ten times. Here's the link: voting.breathlesspress.org

Excerpt on Faith's website

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Breathless Press

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