When we were young, we used to have all kinds of parties. Most of the week, in fact, consisted of: the methodical destruction or ‘strengthening’ of our livers.
One morning after, we went downstairs to survey the postmortem apartment. We were greeted by a most unpleasant odor upon entering the kitchen; the smell that could only be from Technicolor-eructation; or in laymen terms Barf.
We walked all over the kitchen in an effort to locate this ever-so-wonderful aroma. We traced it to the space between the fridge and the cubby that housed said fridge. “GREAT!” we thought. Who in the heck decided that it was a better idea to puke here than in the bathroom? We pulled the fridge out and saw nothing.
Hmm? “Oh well” we thought; “forget about it. The smell will go away.” Typical bachelor rationalization.
The smell didn’t go away however, it transformed. Not only did it transform, it got worse! It continued to irradiate it’s evil pungency until not even us brave and fearless bachelor types could stand the horrific stench. So we did the next best thing, we put the fridge outside.
That failed to do the job. The stench located the back door and in it came. It continued to create a gut wrenching putrescence that could in no way be described (even with today’s modern technology.)
Well, one day we were sitting around the TV set basking in abhorrence, wondering what to do about our new anti-air freshener, when our friend came in the front door. “JESUS CHRIST!!!” He walked out of the house, got back into his car, and drove away.
We immediately called the refrigerator repairman, who upon entering our stink-enriched domicile said (with all the calmness of a true veteran repairman) “Did you check the drip-pan?”
In a sitcom-esque, unplanned simpatico, we both naively chimed, “There’s a pan under there?”
The indescribable evil that the repairman found within that refrigerator pan was and still is a mystery. But we believe, to this day, that the black pudding-like substance (which most likely was a spawn from the very pits of hell itself) was a new form of life that could probably have made a great episode of the X-Files.