Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Zip-lock of Destiny

This story started about a year and a half ago when Ian brought over a whole squid to add to the grilling surplus at Bronwen’s first birthday party. At the end of the party he left at our house a large zip-lock bag filled with squid for future use. I promptly threw it into the abyss that is the freezer and never saw it again until last Friday when, while digging around for something to defrost for dinner I happened upon a rock solid, frozen bag of squid.

“Do you think I should throw this out?” I asked Dan.

He scowled at me, so I walked out to the garbage bin and tossed it in and promptly forgot it.

The next weekend some friends came over for dinner and kept complaining about the stink coming from the garbage bin.

“Yeah, we forgot to take it out last week,” I apologized, not even thinking the bag of squid could have anything to do with it.

Yesterday as I was wheeling in the garbage bin I was perturbed to discover that the bin, although recently emptied, still reeked. I lifted the lid and saw a scrunched-up zip-lock bag at the bottom of the bin. I reached in to pull it out for closer inspection. That is when I realized that I was standing in the middle of my driveway with a zip-lock bag full of swollen wriggling maggots.

Disgusted, I dropped the bag back into the bin and continued dragging it towards its storage place. The stink was even worse when I parked it, and as my flip flop slipped and my barefoot squished into rotting squid flesh that had somehow ended up on the ground behind the garbage I had the sickening realization that I would never be able to eat squid again.

2 comments:

Mr. Cavin said...

I did not think you were going to top this line:

"...a rock solid, frozen bag of squid."

But you did! Did I ever tell you about the squid carts here? They are awesome. Little hot dog carts, basically, with a modified wooden rack on top, from which dry squids are hung like translucent leather sails. The guys push the carts down the road, either selling the jerky raw or cooking it over a little burner in the cart. I always expect it to sound like wind chimes. I'm really going to miss that, although I must confess I've never bothered to actually buy a dried squid from one of these vendors.

Alice C. Linsley said...

Yuck!

Time to wash out the trash bin with bleach and water.