The Smell of Success

The odor that saturates the room is as captivating as it is repugnant. It is an intoxicating stew of smells, that has, over the course of several months, crept through the quarter-inch high gap between the bottom of my door and the carpet. It is the smell of moldering chicken bones, fetid milk, sawdust and body odor. You can almost see the smell in my apartment.

The “trash pit,” as it has been christened, resembles a scaled model of a landfill sitting next to our refrigerator. And while it no doubt harbors small and unique forms of life, and is almost certainly the leading cause of the hacking coughs that echo through the rooms late at night, the pit never diminishes, it only grows. When asked why no one has taken the trash to the dumpsters located less than one hundred yards from the room, my roommates reply “I’m busy with school,” or “throwing it out won’t really solve the problem…will it?”

The garbage was taken out just shy of two months ago as part of a joint cleaning project between all of the roommates. It was spurred on following an anomalous incident involving a human female, who briefly visited the room. All of us, embarrassed by her obvious disgust, vowed to “never let this happen again.” And for a short time the apartment was well organized and smelled of cooking spices a la scented candles. We no longer walked quickly, with bated breath, from the hallway to our rooms. The room was a locus for discussions, late night study sessions and OC parties. However, one afternoon I noticed, as I tossed an empty pizza pocket wrapper toward the garbage, that “the pit” had once again been resurrected.

While the apartment retains little of its former glory, we have continued using the common room as a popular hang-out. My roommate stands up from the couch stretching. Two bean shaped, butt-cheek spots mark the couch, documenting his five-and-a-half hour gaming session. “Dude, this semester is gonna be gay with aids,” he says, “I’ve got soo much shit to do.” He emits a loud, contagious yawn and sits again.

Much like the inside of a shoe, the damp, dark conditions of a couch, moistened by pant sweat, are prime habitat for bacteria. Tiny life thrives in our couch like a microcosmic Times Square. I imagine the bacteria, hosting soirees, sipping drinks and commenting on the growing obesity epidemic.

You can’t simply Febreze this away.

And, as I sit looking at the television with my roommate as he casually thumbs the controller, I begin to wonder if cleaning this really is beyond me. Because really, I know that when it does finally escalate to the critical point of cleaning, I will simply sit on the couch, look at the television and blame the whole mess on my gender.