[BigV]

I know what heaven smells like--it smells like bleach. We mucked out a house on Sunday in Waveland. This house is about a mile in from the shoreline and the storm surge flooded the house with seawater. I don't know how deep the water was at this house, but inside the house there was a ceiling fan in the living room. Resting on one of the blades of the fan was a little table clock and on another blade was a videotape. They obviously had floated up there and were left high and dry as the water receded.

The walls, carpet and ceiling were black with mold. Everywhere. The house looked like the set of a horror film. Including the garage, naturally. That much water in motion floats and moves everything around so much that nothing can stays in it's original place unless it was built in. In their garage they had an upright freezer, well stocked with food. When we found it, it had fallen over forward onto its door, with the weight of the freezer and its full load of food sealing the door tightly shut.

We intended to remove the freezer from the garage by tipping it up enough to slide the blade of the handtruck underneath and the haul ass to the curb. When we tipped it up, it began to leak. It poured out a milky yellowish liquid with little sparkles in it. Actually, what I thought were sparkles were little wigglers of some kind--maggots probably. Eww.

The smell coming out of the freezer was BY FAR the most vile revolting gagging choking nasty assault on my senses I've ever encountered. I've smelled everything a baby can make stinky from loaded diaper mines to sour milk bombs. We have had all kinds of pets and they can stink too, from rolling around in who knows what to smeary wet dog. I have eaten things my body has rejected, from either end, that I will never eat again. The smell of all of these put together would be a delicate rose by comparison. The smell coming from this freezer was like the smell of death. I never want to smell it again.

We got the handtruck blade under it and expressed that monster to the curb and it leaked all the way. I came back into the garage to sweep out the crap and mud and funk. While I was doing this, B, another member of our team, was emptying the freezer of its biohazard cargo. FEMA / Army Corps of Engineers / Contractors won't take it unless it's empty and has the doors taped shut. I respect B, and although his sanity is somewhat in question, he will never again have to prove his masculinity to me. Ever.

I was caught in the garage with this evil spirit trying to possess me through my respirator. The spill covered the whole one car garage floor. I was using a push broom to urge the muddy funk out toward the door. As I swept the sides, I bashed into a soaked box of Tide laundry detergent. Great, I thought, I could use the help. After a couple of more strokes with the broom, I thought, Hey, if that's the detergent, the bleach must be around here somewhere...There! I uncapped the bottle and poured out about half the one gallon jug onto the floor, shaking it all over. Normally, that much bleach in such a small space would be a recipe for chemical poisoning, respirator not withstanding. But that...biological warfare agent, against that, it was barely a fair fight. I could breathe without gagging and retching into my respirator. I quickly finished sweeping out the garage and onto the driveway (using more bleach here, because we left a drippy trail out there too) and sweep sweep sweep across the street and into the ditch. Success!

Hours later, on the way home, someone said Boy, I want a shower, I really stink. I said, after today, B.O. smells like perfume. And heaven, well, heaven smells like bleach.