The Tale of the Beans

The following story is a guest blog post written by my wife Kristen. Sometimes my overly sensitive senses are a bit too sensitive, and then there are times like yesterday when yes, it was really that bad. Enjoy the following hilarity…

When I arrived at work on Wednesday, there was a post it that my beans had been put in a fridge at work.My coworkers in my cubby row let me know that they were quite smelly in the morning, so they put them in the fridge. I wasn’t too surprised as they were a bit old and I forgot to get them back into the fridge overnight.

I was hoping that it wouldn’t create too much of a disturbance for anyone trying to get something out of that fridge, but I would deal with it closer to the end of the day.In the afternoon I had a break, so I decided to deal with the beans.  

They were in a Pyrex dish, so I looked for something to throw them in to contain the smell.  I found a Ziploc bag, placed them in there and threw them in the trash.  Then I washed the bowl with Dawn and a scrubby.  I found it curious that there was still a smell in the empty dish, but thought I would take it home to see if running it through the dishwasher would get out the smell.On Thursday morning, I went to make my lunch at home and remembered the smelly dish in my lunch cooler. I warned Aaron that it might smell a little bit.  

His sensitive nose was immediately alarmed and he darted to the stairs to get away from it.  It was lingering a bit so he quickly went downstairs to light a couple of candles.  He indicated that they were not helping, and it was really strong.  After laughing at him a bit that he was being a little dramatic, I decided to put the dish and lid in the dishwasher. 

I was late for work, so thought I would deal with it after work and that the smell would be contained in the dishwasher. On the drive in, I called Aaron to let him know that the dish was in the dishwasher and that if he could, please run it.  

As he started up the stairs, he was stopped by the stench.  I could not keep back my laughter at the thought that this empty dish was holding him hostage in the basement.  

He persevered, held his breath, added soap, and got the dishwasher started. Aaron ran back to the safety of the candles in the basement and let me know he could really smell it when he opened the dishwasher.  

Aaron asked if the dish could just be thrown away. Due to it being a Pyrex, I said I’d like to see if the dishwasher can get out the smell. If not, yes it can be tossed.I came into work thinking I had quite the funny story for my co-workers. 

While waiting for both of them to be at their desks, I mentioned to one that I had a story to tell when the other was back. We had a visitor from another part of the floor. As I started to allude to the story that the bean smell was too much for Aaron in the morning, our visitor started to laugh that this made him think of something from the day before that had happened in the kitchen area at work.  

The admin from his section was in the kitchen area with a guy from maintenance and they were investigating the source of a terrible smell. They were debating if it was the garbage disposal or something else. Surely it couldn’t be something in the trash creating that much of a stench. Oh my goodness this had me laughing. Then, as he was leaving the building about an hour later, in the lobby (9 floors down) he overheard some maintenance guys saying they were still trying to figure out the source of the smell on the 11th floor. At this point, I was laughing so hard I was crying realizing the extent of the impact of the gaseous beans.

I decided that I should apologize to the admin that my beans were the source of the smell the day before.  I had already laughed until I cried, but this was just the beginning.  I went to tell her and she relayed more of the story.  The smell had wafted out of the kitchen area, past a convenience mart area, and into the first row of cubbies on the other side of my floor at work.  Someone was passing through and thought one of the workers might have messed themselves because it smelled so bad.  The admin went over to the area and confirmed that yes it definitely did smell.  Then when she got back to her cubby, 30-40 feet away, it had permeated her way as well.  It was at that point that she called maintenance. Mind you, the gas from about a cup of beans had permeated a quarter of the room floor (roughly 3000 square feet of smells).  I laughed and held my head in shame at the same time.When I returned to my cubby and related these last details to my co-workers, I was laughing so much that there was belly laughing and more tears.   For the last couple of hours, there has been much residual laughter.  One can only wonder what further havoc these beans created in their journey to the landfill.  Who knew what impact a $1 can of beans could have?