The Case of the Perplexingly Pungent Perfume

Chilascó is a farm town. As a farm town it presents a dizzying array of sights, sounds and smells. The occasional rooster will come meandering through your doorway, the wild dogs have a habit of keeping you awake at night as they apparently hold choir practice at 4 am, and you will all too often find yourself asking “what in the hell is that odor?”

Well, for the past two weeks I have been asking myself that very question… on a daily basis! From the picture above you can see how my bedroom is laid out. The room is about 10 feet across, on the right side sits my bed and on the left side sits my dresser/bookshelf. What you can’t tell by the picture is that behind the dresser is an archway that leads to the next room over, it is closed off with wooden planks.

Okay, so the scene is now set. Two weeks ago, just about when I got back from vacation, a mysterious aroma started plaguing me as I would lie down to go to sleep. I also came down with a pretty bad sinus infection at this time and was pretty stuffed up, but even with this inhibited sense of smell the stench was pungent. “Something smells like crap”, I said to myself. (Literally, out-loud, I said this. I’ve been catching myself talking to myself more and more.)

My first line of defense was to start burning incense. This was able to mask it, but only until the stick burned out, then the beast would return with a vengeance. The key was to try and fall asleep before the incense stick, “mystic wood” scent if you’re curious, burned out. It was a futile effort to race the beast.

Next, I washed everything; sheets, blankets, pillow cases, all my clothes, ALL OF IT. But alas, no dice, fail, the beast persevered. So, after a little anxiety attack, I went on a cleaning frenzy. Seven hours of cleaning under everything, in every little crack and crevice, pouring bleaches on the floors and walls, lysoling the hell out of everything… I even flipped my bed over and washed the underside. I was half expecting to find a dead family of mice or something, but there was nothing. The beast prevailed.

Then, today, just as I was about to take a bath in tomato sauce (I once heard this is how you get skunk spray smell out), I came home to find the door to the next room over open. The smell of the beast was pouring out the door. I put my game face on and went storming in for the final showdown, and found myself face to face with 400 pounds of fertilizer. Chicken shit. Several feet from where I sleep seems like a reasonable place to store feces, right?

Today, I conquered the beast. Or more accurately, I relocated it to the front porch of my host family’s house. Now they can deal with it...

There is a beast in man that needs to be exercised, not exorcised.

~Anton LaVey