Musk

This is a story I had to work backward to figure out.  It involves a smell.   When we went to New Jersey to visit my brother-in-law and sister-in-law's family we stayed in their guest room and our children stayed in the office on their pull out trundle sofa bed.   Since the office isn't set up as a bedroom, I keep the children's clothes, shoes and toiletries in our room.   One night after we'd been there for several days, my husband came in and said he smelled something unpleasant that was unusual.

I'd been in the room for a while that night so I couldn't smell it but the next day when I came in, I got a whiff of it too.   I checked the laundry basket but it wasn't coming from the soiled laundry.   We were close to the end of the trip at the time so when I started packing up I was checking things, seeing if I could discover what it was. 

When I got to my flip flops of many years I found the cause.   Hrm, how long had it been since they'd been cleaned?  They were weather-resistant and had gotten wet many times so I took them into the shower with me and they got clean along with the rest of me.   I dried them off, put them in a shoe bag, and packed them with the remainder of our things.  By now, I thought I'd figured out what the smell was, and it was only via a strange incident that happened to me in 1991 when I was working at IBM.   

I worked in a large product group and had moved around to different areas within it over the few years I worked there first as a co-op and then later as an employee.   I had moved to a new office in the testing group and was moving my things into the desk drawers when I found a small, plastic-wrapped bundle in the back of one of the drawers. 

I unrolled layer after layer of this strange little packet, hoping there was something inside as it got smaller and smaller with the removed plastic.   When I got to the very center there was a small bit of waxy paper that, upon opening, had the most unusual bad smell to it.   Why would someone keep something that smelled so bad, wrap it up so tightly, and then bring it to work?   

I asked my office mate when he got in and he immediately solved the mystery, telling me it was his and he'd forgotten to take it home.   It was some deer musk a friend had given him for when he went hunting.   Apparently, it helped bring bucks to where you were waiting with your gun, in hopes of having venison for dinner.  

He took it back and since that day, I thankfully haven't had the opportunity to smell the smell again.   Back to the shoes: why did I suspect it was deer musk?   I had gone to a wooded property where my nephew purchased a jet ski.   While he and the owner were talking, I had walked around the property looking at and counting how many jet skis he had.   I was wearing those flip flops at the time.   Had I stepped on something covered in deer musk?   

I told my husband that's what I thought it was and that I'd washed the shoes but I wasn't sure if I'd gotten it all off, because it was strong stuff, intended by nature to last as long as possible so it could do its job well. Sure enough, when we got home, the bag I had the shoes in and the shoes themself still smelled, so I threw them in the laundry with the rest of the clothes to be cleaned. 

The next day I was out getting some prescriptions when I got a call from my husband.   My daughter and he were folding the laundry and she said it smelled bad.   He agreed it did and wasn't sure why.   I realized my mistake in thinking the smell would wash off and not contaminate the rest of the laundry—it was stronger stuff than I had imagined it could be. 

One more wash fixed the laundry, which I was grateful for because at this point I was worried we'd have to wash the items more than once.   The shoes went into the trashcan.   They were old and it was time for a new pair anyway.   

In the end, I'm not completely sure it was deer musk on the shoes but it fits and is the only explanation I have.   I'm just glad it came out of the clothes. 

The Big Boy Tiny Girl Rock Story:  My mother-in-law sent pictures of my daughter at the park by the lake, squatting down in the dirt with a stick.   She spent a lot of time digging up rocks.   She dug up several and made quite the collection.  She sent a video of my son, who was taking rocks and practicing skipping them on the surface of the water.   He wasn't doing well at first, but kept at it, trying to get the angle and throw just right.  It didn't help that the rocks weren't ideal in shape for rock skipping.   I am wondering, knowing my children, if they will return home tomorrow each with their own collection of rocks.