fridge mysteries

Uh. Why exactly does our refridgerator smell so potently nauseating? Ehh. Ew. Why?

I've emptied all of the food out, washed it all out with soap and water (even have baking soda that is supposed to absorb the smells) - yet STILL, I open it later to the same putrid smell.

For those of you who know my mother (who is strong and beautiful, illogicial at times, MAD i tell you!), when I was 10 years old, we were driving along when we came upon a fox just newly demolished by a passing car. She immediately stopped the car and collected the remains of the fox's depleted carcass, wrapped it in a towel, and tossed it in the trunk. She is a teacher at a tiny private school, where one teacher is handed the responsibilities of few students in many classes ranging from all ages - (her primary focus was grades 7-10 science and math), and cancelled the normal curriculum for the day. She also, drug along, my 4th grade substitute (my grade at the time) for her mischevious experiments. I still remember her face, beaming with genuine excitement,"I've never seen roadkill so fresh!" And then, the dissection began - all day long, reeking the classroom of rotting carcass.

The relevance of this story is coming soon, really. Later that day, the dissection process was asked to be stopped, politely, by the principal, because, my the substitute teacher had cut his finger (rather deeply) through his latex gloves, and apparently, this fox was not tested for diseases, like rabies for instance? which foxes (at the time) had a 60% chance of having.

A week later, a good friend of mine, Nikki (who was in my mother's biology class) was loading up the car with food for People's Kitchen (preparing meals at a homeless shelter), and noticed a rather large lock on the top freezer. Why was this locked? When asking my mother (the sponsor) she immediately turned red. Yes. The fox was being preserved for rabies tests in the school's kitchen freezer, the one where they prepared hot lunch from every weekday. The fox turned out to not have rabies (what a relief!). And while this actual story doesn't pertain to a smelly fridge (because it was locked, on its own, in a freezer and wasn't mixed with the food we ate), it does remind me of the OTHER time my mom kept an octupus in the mini fridge in her classroom (and she did keep other food in there this time) and made all of the other food smell like dead sea animal. So when I whipped out my popsicle, all packaging reeked of so, and even the food, a little (at least that's the way I remembered it).

But the moral of the story, and a little 3rd grade health - your sense of smell and taste are connected - a smelly fridge is contaminating my wonderful food (and you don't even know the deep love I have for this food). And while I may be slightly exaggerating (because I do that a lot) at the current foul odor of my fridge (because it hasn't yet quite reached the rank of the dead animal) - it still is making me slightly annoyed. And you all should feel horrible and sympathetic at the unbearable trials that life has violently thrown in my direction. Bah!