“It was the chicken,” he said as he walked into the room.

“Wha?” I’m halfway listening as I’m reading something very important on the internet.

“The chicken.”

He has my attention now. “What chicken?”

“The smell.”

“Huh?” Clearly I’m missing some context here.

“I just realized that the chicken was stinking-up the Woody.”

“Oh. But what chicken?”  For some reason I can’t stop imagining a live chicken running a muck in his work van. I’m confused and my forehead is doing that pucker thingie that it does when I’m perplexed and that’s why I have forehead wrinkles.

“The chicken in my lunch box.”

“Oh. That chicken. From two weeks ago? Ewwwwwwwwww.”

“Yeah, I can’t believe we thought it was mildew.”

“Well, you did leave the doors to the Woody wide open through a torrential downpour.”

“I’m just glad I got it figured out. Now I don’t have to clean the Woody today.”

“But what about the lunch box? That thing wasn’t cheap.”

“I don’t know. I guess we’ll see.”

“Were you on of those kids that always left food in your lunch box over the weekend?”

“My mom used paper bags.”

“Good to know.”

___________________________________________________________________________

Seriously guys. Don’t let this happen to you. It was the chicken smelt round the world. Or just our neighborhood. Sorry neighbors. The minute the doors of the Woody were opened the smell rushed out into the world overpowering in its terrible stench. I would never have guessed the source of the smell wasn’t mildew. I actually have a lot of experience in the field of mildew from that time that Dash got rained in and a mold infestation occurred. I’m sure you can’t wait to read about that.

So moral of the story is leaving perishable food in a lunch box in a hot car for days is not advised. Unless you really like surprises.