When Sweet Potatoes Aren't

My first thought upon opening the pantry door this morning was to wonder what died. That's generally not a good sign, even less so when you are supposedly trying to sell the house and want things to look and smell clean. You can make the house look as presentable as possible, but if it smells as if something crawled into the walls and died, you are not likely to have any bidders.

Normally, I put my husband's nose to the task of locating the source of an odor. Unfortunately, the rascal had left the house for work a few minutes prior to my discovery of the smell. I hunted around the pantry to see if anything was noticeably awry, and I discovered a small plastic bag that had fallen behind a few other things on the floor. That bag held an even tinier bag. Inside this clearly not airtight set of bags, I found the most odoriferous set of thoroughly rotten sweet potatoes I have ever had the dubious distinction of owning. Pig can be very, very relieved that he was not set on their trail; the one thing that makes him gag by scent alone is rotten potatoes. I suspect that sweet potatoes would also qualify.

As quickly as possible, I scooped up the offending tubers by the very edges of their plastic prison, and I threw them into our kitchen garbage can. I then spent the rest of the day trying to come up with ideas on how to prevent the scent from lingering without actually taking the trash out to the outside containers. Trust me when I say I would rather deal with rotten sweet potatoes inside the house than having to bring them out to the very ripe, desperately in need of bleach garbage cans that were stewing in the ninety-degree heat of the day.

I tossed a few vinegar-soaked paper towels into the trash can. I poured some baking soda on top. Other than making a slight fizz, there was no noticeable change in our garbage. I attempted to cover up the stinkiness with some foam packaging material that came via UPS today. I made up a batch of popcorn in an effort to at least mask the smell in the rest of the kitchen. All that really accomplished was to make me hungry and I made up a second batch after the kidlets polished off the first round of popped kernels. I debated going out to the store to buy some scented spray to aim at our garbage, but gave up that idea as a poor choice for the air quality in the house, and an even worse choice because of our family's breathing issues. Surprisingly, what appeared to finally do the trick was when I wiped out the pot in which I made the popcorn and threw that paper towel into the trash can. I don't know whether it was the olive oil, salt, and partially popped popcorn remnants that did something, or whether it was a combination of everything I had tried before, but I could finally open the garbage can lid without passing out from the stench.

Eventually, Pig came home from work and took the trash with the rancid sweet potatoes to the outside garbage cans. I suppose I should flutter my eyelashes and proclaim him my hero, but mocking flattery almost never gets me anywhere. Perhaps I should make him some of that popcorn as a thank you. More likely, I will simply wait to do so on the next day some neglected food dies a horribly putrid death and needs a masking scent of popcorn residue to make it all go away.