Yesterday was a pretty standard day off.

I got up early and took The Suz to work at the Shotz Brewery (always a dubious task as it runs the risk of running into Ex-NotBoyfriend #3, recently christened the ferretweasel by The Suz). Stopped at McDonald's for an Egg McMuffin (yes I know I'm not supposed to support soulless corporate America, but a girl needs protein sometimes). Came home. Took a nap. Got up. Took a shower.

The route from my bathroom back to my bedroom takes me through the front hall, past the door.

What IS that smell?

That can't be me. I just had a shower! What kind of soap was that?

Is that coming from The Suz's room? Did the IsCats do something unholy in there?

No. It seems to be creeping in around the door.

Open the door to the hall.

Hoo boy!

The downstairs neighbors-- the same ones who called the landlady a few weeks ago regarding my loud stereo and please it's not like I was up here playing Hendrix at full volume it was the new Coldplay CD and that's very soothing I listen to it when I'm trying to go to sleep and the IsBoyfriend is here and don't those people ever sleep?-- they have need of storage boxes apparently. That's reasonable.

What is not reasonable is the part where they went to the local supermarket and obtained said storage boxes from the FISH COUNTER. These boxes are now sitting on the second floor landing filling the entire building with the olfactory memories of Nova Scotia smoked salmon that was once fresh but has long since been purchased and consumed.

Did I mention it was 70 degrees and humid yesterday?

But rainy, so going outside is not an option.

How do you call the landlady to complain about an intrusive and distracting odor?

You don't. What you do is run your obligatory ninja mission back to the Shotz Brewery in the afternoon because you have to have some sort of escape and even bumping into the ferretweasel is preferable to the smell of ass at low tide creeping into every surface of your home. Then you got to the market for provisions.

"Lemon?"

"No, Manda, we want to neutralize the fish, not make it savory."

Got something called Mountain Breeze or whatever.

I hope they don't actually USE those boxes for storage.