There are a lot of bad smells in the world. Among them, some have attained "legendary status": skunk, any kind of crap, limburger cheese (seriously, how could anyone eat that stuff?)...
But I've smelled something far worse. No matter how many sewage plants or dead animals I drive by, there will always be one odorous memory that haunts me more than any other. I could give you 1,000 guesses, and there's no way you'd get it (unless you glanced down and saw the picture below).
Yeah, the worst smell in the world is an orange peel.
You are probably in squinting your eyes, shaking your head, thinking, "Jon is an idiot." And that last part may be true, but I assure you, the picture above represents one of the worst smells, nay experiences, of my life. Here's the story:
I spent some time in "East Asia" (pardon the secrecy) about 5 years ago. My roommate while there was an old friend of mine, Greg Del Moro.
- [Tangent-within-a-tangent: As you might have already realized, the name Greg Del Moro is extremely similar to the name Gregor Mendel. So we usually called Greg by the name Gregor Mendel-moro or just "the father of genetics".]
Apparently the people of that part of the world find that orange peels help keep a fridge or room fresh and pleasant? And while this might be true of a peel that's one or two days old (I wouldn't know, I've never dared experiment with such a monstrous power), the one in our fridge must have been rotting for months.
If you google "orange peel uses" or "orange peel scent", you will actually find tips for how orange peels can freshen the air -- while they're being boiled. And I can attest to this, as just tonight my roomate boiled some orange peels while making cider. Yeah, my roommate makes cider.
Questions for you to ponder/answer:
- Do you have any stories of something that smelled surprisingly awful?
- Do you have any friends with sweet nicknames like "the father of genetics"?
Jon
