Lately, my car has been smelling strange. I thought it was moisture, damp carpets and all, so I removed the wet winter rugs. As it did not seem to help, I put the car inside the garage for a few nights with the windows rolled down and the hatch opened. Still no change, the smell was ever present. It was a hard to define smell, nothing i could recognise. It was not a damp basement smell, it was not a food cellar smell, it was not a sour milk smell, it was not a dog poop nor a cat pee smell either. I wondered if that was what rust smells like as I noticed some orange popping up on the red hood. I thought maybe it was rotting carpet, or whatever synthetic ice melting products the city has chosen to put on the streets this winter.
I was almost ready to either put the car up for sale or to hang one of those awfull smelling cardboard christmas trees on the mirror. It had gotten to the point where I felt my clothes smelled strange when I got to the office.
This morning when I got to work and was about to get out of the car, I noticed my purse had tipped over and one of my gloves was missing. So I pushed the passenger seat forward to better see where my glove had gone. And guess what I saw, comfortabily nestled under the passenger seat? A rotting turnip! It was not moving on its own yet but it was very soft and was growing some nice samples of penicillin…It must have rolled out of a grocery bag a while ago and was never missed…Turnips are not that memorable that you will open the fridge door and exclaim “WHAT is missing in here? Of course there is no TURNIP!!!”
Now I must confess I did the non noble thing and I threw it under the car. I was not in the mood to carry it down the street to a proper garbage can.
I cleaned the dark circle it left on the bottom of the car and the smell is already better. Maybe I will keep the car a while longer….