In all of our years of life experience, my spouse and I have discovered that through most of the trials and tribulations that life brings, there is often some sort of positive outcome, if you wait for it. Of course there are exceptions to the positive aftermath experience.
First, is the case of the rotting chicken breasts – and the garage clean-out. One day there was a pungent odor coming somewhere from the vicinity of the garage.
It started out as an off smell that we’ve detected before when the cat brought a live, soon to be dead, toy indoors as far as the garage and left it there, bored with the playtime. But we couldn’t readily find it, which was the unusual part.
So, moving on with our busy lives, we put the nasty mystery on hold for a few days. Until one day, we opened the outdoor garage door and the odor wafted out like nobody’s business. It was unmistakably necessary to find the culprit and get rid of it.
The long neglected garage clean-out had to begin. We started with cleaning off our stored, nearly-vintage vehicle, which became a shelf for mostly cardboard boxes which we collect for our business. Too many boxes, many of which were quickly repurposed or responsibly discarded became quick-impact work.
Once the car was freed from its storage prison, we discovered the battery had died. So there’s that.
Soon we saw that mouse-type creatures had found the bird seed and made piles of it here and there, and an old towel had become a home of sorts, all torn up, chewed or what have you. We expected to find a carcass at any moment. Eww.
A relatively large selection of stored historical business paperwork and cloth type stores were thrown into the garbage. We don’t need all of that. But, no resolution of the clean-out inducing odor, was to be found.
We charged the battery on the stored vehicle, moved it outdoors and took it for a trip around the block; moved our main vehicle outdoors as well, freeing the space of large obstacles. Having dealt with most of the “extra” stuff, now we could power up the leaf blower and clear the minuscule debris, dust bunnies, dirt, leaves, etc., from the garage. But, still no dead mice. Hm.
The smell-culprit was in the driveway – a thirteen dollar package of chicken breasts that we bought a week ago, was left forgotten in the hot underworld of our car. It was a “dead animal” after all. Oh my Lord, I’ve not experienced much in this life that was more disgusting, seriously.
Getting rid of the “dead animal” was almost as appalling as discovering it, but it’s finished, as they say. The bottom line is, the garage is way more organized and tidy than before the chicken debacle.
The next mystery is the case of I thought I bought something but I can’t find it – and the pantry reorganization. This could be considered a cold case since I’ve been there more than once over the years, just for the record.
Let me set up this case with a disclaimer or excuse, if you will. We own a small, vintage, partially remodeled house. We make due with the space that we have. So, there are no revolving shelves in a walk-in kitchen pantry. We have a pantry closet with a movable shelf system which we built close to forty years ago when we lived in a small one bedroom apartment in New Mexico.
Also, most of our meals are prepared from scratch, so we have a vast selection of pantry items which we use and replace weekly. We make periodic trips to big box stores for pantry items as well, so our pantry storage is an organized art form, most of the time.
So, on occasion, I have a check-mark in the back of my mind that I bought a certain item, but for the life of me, I cannot find it. Thus the positive resolution of the case with a pantry re-do or clean-out.
One of my pet-peeve misfortunes is the next case of what happened when I could have sworn that I wrote that bill on the bill-pay calendar but didn’t, then found that I missed another and another – a catch which prevented a whole bunch of further mishaps. I probably shouldn’t take pride in my organizational ability, because sometimes it fails me and feel like a twit.
Case-in-point. Lesson-learned.
Next, we have another cold case from the late 1980s. This is the case of the broken down station wagon in the heat, with our panting kitty inside – and the dream vehicle found on a car lot in Missouri.
Once upon a time, way back when, we lived and worked in New Mexico and came back to Pennsylvania in the summers over school-break. One particular summers end, we packed our white station wagon with baby blue interior, to the brink, found a space for the cat carrier and his litter box at the ready, and headed back to work.
Although a really sweet ride, that station wagon was used, and realistically we were embarking on an eighteen hundred mile “wing and a prayer,” if ever there was one. I think we started to overheat and fumble in western Ohio. Our prayers intensified as our wings barely fluttered into the Midwest.
We pulled into a car lot below Joplin Missouri with the last sputter of that cute white station wagon. It was a big dealer for a small town, and the minivan that we could easily have built online just for us, sat prominently in plain view, on the lot.
As I look back with some maturity under our belts, and see that we were so cute, thinking we had bargaining ability, begging the sales team to house our hot kitty and packed, dying vehicle while we “negotiated” the purchase of a new car. But it worked out and we drove our new car back to New Mexico with room to spare for the cat and his litter box.
A couple of years later, that vehicle carried us, the same cat, and our new baby back to Pennsylvania for a permanent stay, this time. It all worked out, the way it should have.
We’ve often commented at the end of many a trial-case, that “this was another time when it worked out for our good, even though the process was something beyond ‘trying.’” I’m subtly reminded of a Scripture from the Biblical book of Romans, “all things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes.” Can you say, Amen?