My House Smells Like Garbage!

     My husband only allows a 1-gallon trashcan in the kitchen, and I had to fight like a tiger for that. He insists the regular size trashcan must be placed in the garage. It’s not a terrible idea, but it is a considerable inconvenience. I’m not sure if this is a Bulgarian thing, or a him thing, but he thought hanging a plastic grocery bag full of trash on the knob of the faux-cabinet drawer in front of the sink was a better idea.

    

     Pissed off by the continual eyesore, and my husband’s stubbornness, I refused to haul the rogue bag out to the garage when it became full. I just hung more bags. Everywhere. After a few days, there were Food Lion bags full of trash hanging off all the cabinet doorknobs in the kitchen. He finally caved in. 

                                                                             

     Because my husband also complains when I use the garbage disposal, (The majority of people in Bulgaria don’t even have a disposal.) I keep him shut up, by tossing vegetable peelings into trash.

    Three days ago, when I entered the garage the smell of rotting vegetables nearly knocked me out. I quickly hauled the hefty bag outside to the large trash receptacle in the backyard. But for some reason the smell did not go away. In fact, every time I walked into the garage, it seemed to get worse.

    

      I confronted my husband. “Something stinks. Did you leave the garage door open again?"

      He waved me off. “Oh, don’t worry about it. I’m making homemade sauerkraut. It always smells like that.”  

                                                                                                                         

      One of my eyelids drooped and I took a deep breath. Everything would be okay in a couple of days once he jarred the stuff. No need to start World War Two million and thirty-three, right? And yesterday, just as I had hoped, I watched my husband fill four jars with homemade sauerkraut. The stinky garage  was now a thing in the past.

      Well, when I returned home today, and walked into the house, I gagged. The entire house smelled of rotting garbage. Swearing under my breath, I went out to the garage, and removed the four jars of sauerkraut he made the night before. I put them on the porch until I could figure out what to do with them. Then, I promptly put on a jacket and opened up the windows and the garage door to air out the house.

    

      Brushing my hands together I muttered, “That’ll take care of that!”

     Knowing my husband would be distraught if he found his jars of sauerkraut on the porch, I set about finding a container to suffocate the smell. Luckily, I had a plastic thirty-gallon container in the garage that I purchased for storage. That would be a good of a place as any to put the saurcraut until my husband could gobble it up. When I removed the lid the container, I was smacked in the face with a scent so awful,  tears to pooled in my eyes.

      Inside the container was a dozen or so of rotten cabbage heads bobbed up in down in water, looking, and smelling like victims of the mob. I dragged that container out of the garage quicker than you could say Tony Soprano.

    When my husband returned home he greeted me with a scowl.  “Why did you put my cabbage outside on the driveway. Someone is going to steal it!”

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

      “Steal it?” I tried control the smirk busting out on my face. “No one will go near that container; it smells like there is a dead body inside.”

      My husband’s forehead scrunched together until he formed a unibrow. “I have to work hard to make sauerkraut. I have to remove the lid everyday and blow bubbles into the water with a straw. I know it stinks, but you're a control freak. Removing that container from the garage was a violation of my rights.” 

     My husband told me that he attended four years of college while he lived in Bulgaria, but I have my doubts.
     I smacked myself upside the head and  tried to find another way to reason with him. “If I had taken the stuff and thrown it in the garbage where it belongs, that may have been a violation of your rights. But I want you to listen carefully; I had to leave the windows open for over two hours while the heat was on just to get the smell out of the house.”

 

         My husband gasped. And I knew I had him.

      (If there is one thing my husband hates more than losing an argument, it's wasting money.) Reluctantly he agreed to leave the rotting cabbage outside, and I willingly helped him carry the container to a safe place in the backyard. But I still have a problem.

      Even though I won the battle, I am not sure I won the war.  Unfortunately, sauerkraut is a gift that keeps on giving. The thought of the smell I am going to have to deal with after my husband ingests a year's worth of the crap is even more troublesome.