(I really have been keeping my car relatively clean!)
Last week one day I got in my car in the morning and noticed a rather foul odor. I didn't think much of it at the time because I only drove a short distance, with the windows down, and I was in a hurry.
In the late afternoon, after the car had sat in near 90°F weather, in direct sunshine, for the entire day, with the windows up, the car stunk to high heaven. I'd assumed I'd put something in the rubbish bag that had gone bad. My "litter bag" is a full size trash bin liner, and it was half full, so I just took it out, without bothering to discern what it was that was stinking.
About 2 hours later I got in my car to go out in the evening, and my car smelled even worse. I was again in a hurry so I just got on the highway and opened all the windows wide. And yet still the stench was horrible. As soon as I arrived where I was going, I immediately began searching the car for the offending source.
By this point I had abandoned my earlier theory that I'd forgotten to bring in some groceries that went bad, and moved onto the possibility that something had actually died in my car, and the smell had to be eminating from some type of corpse. I briefly had a fear of opening the trunk... I watched too many episodes of CSI and Touching Evil this year.
I found the source of the pungeant god-awful stench... It was on the driver's side back seat, under a piece of crumpled newspaper... It was a poor little brown bird - or rather what had been a poor little brown bird.
Of course I was very upset about it.
And here I'd thought it was bad when my friend told me the story about how one day she was driving and a ham sandwich came flying in her window and bounced off her head.
Though an acquaintance of mine, upon hearing my bird through the window story told me of an incident where a hawk flew into a woman's car window and latched onto her arm with its talons. That certainly sounded worse in some ways.
The bird in my car was way past using its bitty talons for anything anymore. The poor thing.
I made my pal Marty remove the corpse from the back seat. Honestly, I didn't feel bad asking because I've seen a dead deer in the back of Marty's pickup truck during hunting season, so I didn't think he'd mind much.
I now remember that last week one evening when I was driving I heard a thud. I'd thought for a moment about it and figured that a bird had flown into my car - I mean hit the exterior. Of course it bothered me, so I pushed the incident out of my mind. I certainly hadn't considered the possibility that the bird had actually flew into my car and landed and died inside it.
And, as if just flying into my back seat and dying there wasn't bad enough... the poor little thing bled all over my seat. I tried to clean it up... and I thought it wouldn't be too bad over the holiday weekend... But then I had to drive a half hour in a rainstorm the one night with the windows open and the rain coming in on me because the stench was that bad with the windows up, in the humidity and such.
So the next day I took it to a hand car wash place where they shampooed the seat where the bird had met its end. The blood stain came out fine. And the car no longer smells bad at all.
The car wash guy said that once he cleaned a van where he found a dead bird under a rug in the back, and the owner hadn't even known about it. This must have occurred in winter time.
The thing is, now, every once in awhile I think I might smell a hint of it perhaps... I hope it's not a case that the stink has permeated into the entire car, and I'll forever be catching a hint of a whiff of it from time to time.
I think I might have to take it back to the car wash and have them wet vac all the upholstry with a whole bottle of Febreeze or something, just to be extra sure the stink is removed.
Last resort would be tomato juice. I only wish my interior upholstry was red.
Note: No, my hair does not smell like a dead bird. My name's not Elaine, and I'm not a character on Seinfeld. Any similarities are pure coincidence.
Update: It's been several days of hot and humid weather, and I haven't smelled any dead bird smell in days, so I think I'm in the clear! Yay.
Posted by Chloe | Tuesday 12 July 2005 5:51PM
Now that is a very odd story... and the poor little bird. :-(
Posted by Lee Ann | Tuesday 12 July 2005 7:01PM
This is probably the third blog or commentary I've read this year about remorse for birds hitting cars. Is this a metaphor for the Iraq war or something?
And it's good to see your site's alive again.
Posted by Old Comedywriter | Thursday 14 July 2005 12:18AM
Nice to see you back, Chloe.
I know the feeling. I had a slightly similar experience with a rabbit once. Don't like to talk about it. Ugh.
-D.
Posted by Dave | Monday 18 July 2005 11:56AM
Dave, you had a similar experience with a rabbit flying through your window?... no wonder he doesn't want to speak about it.
The guy in this story ( Motorist's nose broken by sausage) had something less iniquitous fly at him, though it did break his nose.
Posted by Rich Shepard | Wednesday 20 July 2005 6:19AM
Oh my lord - that's horrifying about the sausage.
And now that I think of it, my friend's incident might've included a hot dog... or maybe it was a bologna sandwich. I'm not sure.
It happened on Main Street in Edwardsville, I believe.
Posted by Chloe | Wednesday 20 July 2005 11:38PM
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Update: It's been several days of hot and humid weather, and I haven't smelled any dead bird smell in days, so I think I'm in the clear! Yay.
Now that is a very odd story... and the poor little bird. :-(
This is probably the third blog or commentary I've read this year about remorse for birds hitting cars. Is this a metaphor for the Iraq war or something?
And it's good to see your site's alive again.
Nice to see you back, Chloe.
I know the feeling. I had a slightly similar experience with a rabbit once. Don't like to talk about it. Ugh.
-D.
Dave, you had a similar experience with a rabbit flying through your window?... no wonder he doesn't want to speak about it.
