take out the trash

i hope i only need to say this to you once: before you leave home for travel exceeding a few days, TAKE OUT THE TRASH.


a long time ago, in my misspent youth, i worked as a custodian for the residential life department at UVM. one year in the infinite wisdom of a large university wishing to get its flagship dorms all neat and tidy for conference housing, it locked up one large dorm immediately after the students left it and did not so much as crack a window or take out a trash can until MID JULY.

then one day they thought they'd like to open up the building and clean it.

do you have any idea what a large dorm smells like after a few hundred students empty out their fridges and leave their empties in the recycling and trash in the cans?

it is not a good smell even when you clean it up right away.

it is really not a good smell when you leave it all sitting in a sealed building for two months in summer heat.

that's kind of how my kitchen smelled today.