Random Misadventures with Fruit

One sunny morning last week, the girls and I went to the beach, as we often do on mornings when I don't have classes. All was tranquil and well as we locked up and left the house, with no hint of what was to transpire.

Upon returning several hours later, wet, sandy, and needing a round of showers, I unlocked the door and was greeted by a most disagreable smell. A little investigating revealed that the cantaloupe that had ostensibly been ripening on the counter for several days, had, in fact, been rotting and had conveniently chosen to rupture while we was gone.

A friend of Josh's once told him the worst thing he had ever smelled was a field of rotting melons. Well, my encounter with this singular rotten melon was enough to convince me of the veracity of that statement! It was putrid.

Clean up of this mess was a rollicking good time! Murphy's Law of drainage states that floors, counters, window sills, and drains must always slope in the most inconvenient direction in the event of a flood or major mess. The cupboards in our house are in several movable pieces, so the melon-y nastiness had run to a crack between sections and dripped down. Fortunately, I was able to slide out a section of cupboard to get it mopped up underneath. I'm not a big fan of bleach, but it required quite a bit of it to knock the smell back a bit. After several days, there was just a hint of it, and now it's all gone, for which I am very thankful.

So I guess the moral of the story is to keep an eye on my 'ripening' fruit!