Ooooh, that Smell!

Remember last month when people across the city were reporting that strange, maple-syrupy smell? Sadly for me and my neighbors, that sweet sicky scent never made it to our neck of the woods. Don't we wish!

Just minutes after coming home tonite, my apartment filled up with such a repulsive fecal aroma, I thought my eyes were going to bleed. It smelled as though a sickly horse had taken a dump right there in the living room. My first reaction was to blame my boyfriend. (Of course.) After he convinced me of his innocence, I looked towards the cat. Wasn't her either. I went over to the window and took a whiff. It was coming in from outside. For a moment, I was actually nostalgic for the smell of rotting cabbage that we're usually treated to.

I'm not a stranger to the stanky living situation. I once lived in an illegal sublet above three Indian restaurants on First Ave in Manhattan. My apartment was right on top of one of their kitchens, so the floor would actually get warm from the cooking. The first wafts of curry would drift up to my place around eleven AM and last the rest of the day and most of the night. To this day, the smell of Indian food makes me gag a little. Now I have cabbage and crap to add to that list. (Not that I ever particularly liked either scent to begin with. . . I'm not weird or anything. . . .)

Comments

[rp]

In the summer when our building smells like a Polish mother's kitchen in the winter, I get nostalgic for the fleeting shit smell of the power plant (is it in Greenpoint) or whatever the fkc makes that bathroom smell as opposed to the gaseous smell of the cabbage next door.

[kc]

chances are, some strange wind was bringing you a bouquet from the sewage treatment plant in greenpoint. i almost bought a house on monitor street with friends about five years ago, but when we spent some time in mcgulrick park to think it over, the sewage smell drove us away, and convinced us that living so close to that plant was a bad idea. you are farther away, but i think that's still probably what happened. either that, or some horrible poo-related accident on the nearby east river.