This is why women burn candles.

The past week I have had a mystery smell in my house.
A bad mystery smell.

It seemed to be stronger in the kitchen area.
I was hoping for a rotten potato.
That is the quickest fix to the "What the (gag) heck is that (gag) smell?!"
Not a potato.
Still really rank in the kitchen.

This led me down my well-worn trail of mental darkness...
What if it was a dead customer??!!

Let me backtrack for those of you new to the blog.

Me=Deathly afraid of rodents.

My husband and my sons try to keep me out of the loop when it comes down to the mouse population in the house.
When they set traps now, they talk in code.
"Hey, did you check the *mailbox* for *customers*?
(wink, wink)
I know deep down what they are referring to, but I choose to take the conversation at face value.

Lalalalala...fluffy white clouds in my world....

So back to my mystery smell.
I was almost thinking it was a customer somewhere, rotting away, and was slightly afraid to find it, and yet really, really anxious to GET RID OF THE PUTRID SMELL emulating from the center of the house.

I mean, what if someone dropped in?

What would they think?
Admit it.
We all know someone that has a weird smelling house.
And it leaves you to wonder if they can't smell it?
How can they stand it?
Is it Pets? Garlic? Socks?
What?
And really, it is asking a lot out of that tiny bowl of decorative potpourri...

What if someone thought my house smelled like this all the time?

I did what any self-respecting homemaker would do in such a grim state of smell-searching panic.

I lit a scented candle.

I was reminded of the Week of the Bad Mystery Smell by my husband.

It was when the twins were potty training.
The house perpetually smelled like a stinky diaper.

I swear, I was anal about taking those things out to the trash, and yet the smell still seemed to linger.

It was a few days later when we discovered one of the twins had done their business, taken the offending diaper off, and promptly stuffed the package down the heater vent.

The combined force of the air, and the heat redistributed that lovely aroma allllll over the house.

For a week.

No candle can compete with that.

I knew we were past the diaper days.
Still this horrid smell remained.

It doesn't help that I have an acute sense of smell.
This was the only skill I retained from all of my pregnancies.
Gone is the voluptuous chest!
Gone is the aversion to carbs!
But my sniffer!
Yep. Still highly sensitive.

I can smell a fart behind a closed door and down two flights of stairs.
Once I was in the kitchen, and could smell the "fruits" from one of the boys from the family room.
"Who WAS IT!!!!" I snarled.
"No way!" the offender replied in awe and disbelief.
And I swear, bet money was exchanged between the boy and his dad.
Yep.
I have skeelz.

This smell.
It was making me crazy!

Finally, I found it.

A package of frozen vegetables that got put away in the pantry instead of the freezer. Yesssss!

I was one happy...um, customer.