Reflections on the First Week of Spring – Stink Obsession

Emma by the Wood Stove Fire

On my knees, facing the toilet Wednesday afternoon, I shook the lemony bathroom cleaner bottle. Not a drop.

I trudged to the kitchen, plopped on my bottom in front of the sink, and opened the door to the cabinet―a place my husband refuses to go. Crammed between a box of rags, a collection of picking buckets, and the compost bin sat a carton of household products. I rummaged through them. Dish detergent, scouring powder, stainless steel cleaner, window cleaner, hydrogen peroxide, and Lysol. No bathroom cleaner. Did I want to change out of my scrub clothes then make the half hour trip to Cochranton’s Market Place for more cleaner?

Picking up the bottle of Lysol that we’d bought decades ago, I read Kills Germs . . . Concentrate. Killing bathroom germs worked for me. And it would save time. I turned the bottle to the back for directions. Tiny letters formed a swirling mosaic. If the mosaic gave directions, I couldn’t read them. Adding a capful to the pail of scrub water would have to do.

Pouring the thick liquid, I missed the cap and a blob oozed across the water. The rusty-brown syrup looked like something to clean rather than something that cleaned. With a rag, I stirred the blob. It smelled―rather reeked―medicinal.

Usually after I scrubbed the tile floor with cleaner, I rinsed with clean water. I didn’t have an extra pail for clean water. I wouldn’t use a picking bucket for cleaning. Should I rummage through Spence’s stash in the basement?

I wiped the floor with a dry rag.

By the time I’d finished scrubbing, my hands tingled. Too late to put on rubber gloves. I emptied the cleaning water, hung the rags, then washed my hands with soap and water. No more tingle, and the bathroom smelled antiseptic clean. Disinfected indeed!

The next morning, Spence, who’d arrived home from Cleveland after I’d gone to sleep, said, “Can you smell that?”

The odor had intensified over night. A corpse with a stuffed nose could’ve smelled it. “It’s Lysol. I ran out of bathroom cleaner.” I wrinkled my nose. “I want our house to smell like wood not disinfectant. Do you think I should scrub the floor again to get rid of the smell?”

“Don’t go crazy.” He opened the front door, stepped outside, and came back with three logs for the wood stove fire. “When it warms up, open the windows.”

While he prepared for another day fighting lead poisoning in Cleveland, I climbed to the loft for yoga―my stretch, relax, and breathe exercises. Breathing brought the stink deep into my lungs. Yuck.

“Goodbye. Stay safe,” Spence called. The front door slammed shut.

I couldn’t wait until the outdoor temperature warmed. Pausing the DVD, I opened the window. Thirty degree air (minus one degree centigrade) poured into the loft. To finish the routine, I pulled on gripper socks for warm toes and no slipping on the yoga mat.

Back downstairs, I opened seven more windows and the sliding glass door.

Our cat Emma merrowed and hobble-wobbled to her blanket in front of the wood stove fire.

“You’ll be fine.” I petted her. Fetching three logs, I stoked the fire. Flames leapt and the stove clanked. I shivered, bundled in a heavy sweater, and huddled under a blanket to eat Spence’s special breakfast concoction―pita stuffed with a mix of chicken, peas, celery, tomato, and tahini sauce

Mourning dove, robin, and chickadee songs floated in with the brisk fresh air. Ahhh. I shivered and took deep breaths. The breaths triggered the memory of inhaling muriatic acid at the YMCA two weeks ago. [See “The Stinging Stench” March 17, 2019] Had I created a toxic stink in the log house?

Robin

Exchanging the breakfast tray for my laptop, I searched for Lysol’s toxicity. The first article warned of swallowing or burns to the skin and eyes. I’d washed the cleaner off my hands fast enough. No burns. The second and third articles proved more dire. Of Lysol’s thirteen ingredients, three were neurotoxins and two caused asthma not to mention damage to multiple organs and systems in the body. Sheesh. And hobble-wobble Emma had asthma. I stared at her on the blanket in front of the fire.

She slept with her legs crossed. No coughing. No snoring.

Two and a half hours later, the chilled air made dull, nagging aches radiate from every joint of my right hand. I checked the temperature on the kitchen weather station. The outdoor temperature had warmed from 30ºF (-1ºC) to 40ºF (4ºC). Despite the stoked fire, the indoor temperature dropped from 66ºF (19ºC) to 61ºF (16ºC). Time to shut the windows and pack for lap swim.

The bathroom still stunk of Lysol. I left the exhaust fan on and stuffed the cleaning rags into an empty coffee bag that had a robust, dark roast aroma.

Though I didn’t cough and didn’t have a scratchy throat, the stink lodged in my lungs. During the fifteen mile drive to the YMCA, I inhaled deep, twelve-second yoga breaths. I held the air four seconds. Thinking of the force I’d used to make the plastic balls rise in the incentive spirometer after surgery decades ago, I pushed all the air out from the bottom of my lungs. By the time I nosed the car into a parking space on South Main, I’d expelled the stink―ready to douse myself in chlorine.

When I lugged my swim gear back home, I opened the front door with caution. A fainter Lysol smell met my nose. I opened the windows for two more hours.

When Spence came home in the evening, I greeted him with “Do you smell the Lysol?”

While he took two sniffs, his nostrils flared. “No. The airing worked.”

For him. The airing had worked for him.

Friday morning dawned rainy, and Lysol greeted my nose yet again. How long would the stink last? Because of the rain, I only opened the bathroom window and turned on the bathroom fan―enough to make Spence use his falsetto voice when he took a leak. “Ooooo. There’s a draft.”

I busied myself washing laundry and baking a chicken pot pie. Mid afternoon, I pulled the third load out of the dryer and took a whiff. The bathroom smelled of baked crust and chicken with a faint aroma of warm lint and Lysol. Maybe if I baked a pie daily for a month, I’d have a house that smelled like pie not Lysol. If the Lysol stink lasted a month, would that cause harm even if only I could smell it?

I dumped the clothes onto a chair, pulled the concentrate bottle from beneath the sink, and squinted. The tiny letters still swam in a mosaic. Fetching a magnifying glass, I moved it back and forth between the print and my face. Slowly, painfully, I decoded the back. Danger . . . Avoid prolonged breathing. How long was prolonged? I kept reading. No hints on getting rid of the smell.

When I woke to the stink of Lysol Saturday, I gritted my teeth and growled. “I WILL ERADICATE THE STINK!”

“Don’t go crazy.” Spence sipped his morning coffee. “You’re going to the Jane Austen meeting Sunday.” He rubbed my back as if calming a sobbing child. “When you come home Monday, the smell will be gone.”

Would the house smell like wood instead of Lysol on Monday? Maybe. And I’d do my best to make sure.

After breakfast, I said, “Please stoke the fire, Spence.”

With his shirt sleeves rolled up against his biceps, he scrunched his forehead at the request. Nevertheless, he stepped onto the porch for more logs.

I rushed about opening the eight windows and sliding glass door. Then I moved everything off the bathroom floor, fetched a handful of rags, and filled the cleaning bucket with water. On my knees, facing the toilet, I rinsed the floor with water and dried it with rags. With sopping sweatshirt cuffs and jean knees, I tossed the water out and settled in my log chair by the fire. Wind chimes clanged on the porch while a red-winged blackbird and phoebe sang. Air blew through the great room spreading papers and contents from the ash bucket across the room. I moved the ashes to the porch, picked up the papers, but left the windows and door open.

Early afternoon rain poured onto the great room floor.

One by one I closed the windows and door then walked to the bathroom. I inhaled a deep yoga breath. No Lysol stink. Maybe the smell of wood would dominate the house again. And the next time I contemplate taking a short cut, I’ll opt for the long way around.

Phoebe