Sheep Shots

Prepping for a big event Saturday night at work. I took it upon myself to clean the room where the meal will be prepped and staged for the buffet (because I want to be sure it's clean dammit!).

There's been a sort of funky smell in that area pretty much forever which I chalked up to the proximity to the (non-public) bathroom that is supposed to be cleaned twice a week (by a paid contractor, not staff!).

I had my doubts when I asked said contractor to clean it "good" last week because of the smell. After he was finished, he told me (proudly) about all the cobwebs and dirt he had routed! Say what? That bathroom is supposed to be part of the general cleaning every Tuesday and Friday! Hmmm. Guess it bears closer checking more often!

Anyway, last week's cleaning didn't get rid of the smell (okay, stench!) so today, I attacked the whole space with a bucket of Lysol water and a trusty comrade (one of our regular volunteers). The 'fridge' needed defrosting, so I pulled the plug and waited for that to happen. When the 3" thick ice had all been pried loose, I proceeded to clean out the bottom part (I want you to know that I don't do this at home!).

You know that little plastic tray underneath that catches drips? And that drain thing that's supposed to let the drips down? Well, the drain was plugged up (still is) so there was a puddle of truly nasty looking moldy water collected. (Did I mention that I discarded the rag after I was done? Not putting that in my washer!) I pulled out the pan which was full of some hard brown goop and asked another volunteer to hose it out.

A few minutes later, I revised that hose request to "fill it and let it sit a while to soften." That was when we discovered Ben and Willard. Yep, the probable cause of the funky smell. Stuck fast and buried in brown gunk.

When I pulled the refrigerator away from the wall to mop underneath, I discovered Algernon. Flat and dead.

I am assuming that these three are the last remnants of a major infestation that had our pest control people stopping by daily to empty traps over a year ago. We can only hope!

And you get a gold star if you recognized all three references. Ben and Willard are pretty obvious. Algernon was in the movie Charly (1968 Cliff Robertson) based on the book Flowers for Algernon by Daniel Keyes.

Knit content: I wound the first skeins of yarn for the second lopi sweater and started the first sleeve. #14 was the winner.