putrid.

So I was working the afternoon shift at Trafalga yesterday. 3 to 11 PM. I was working with my good buddy, Corbin. A family of 3 consisting of a well-built, older, mustached man, his "son" (I think) dressed in a mock police outfit, and another tall "son" (again, not sure) in a blue-and-white striped polo came out to the go-kart track. The latter two gentlemen were mentally handicapped, each in different ways. The blue-and-white striped guy was a bit physically handicapped. There's your setup.

As they came out, the mustached man and the blue-and-white guy stand in the go-kart line. The "policeman" went into the public bathroom, which is in the same small building where Corbin and I stand around all day. This guy. This man. Spent a good 15 minutes in the bathroom. We kinda forgot he was in there. Someone else came in to use the bathroom, and thought the door was locked with no one in there. I knocked, and the "policeman" answered, so I just let him be.Some folks came up to the window to grab some batting equipment. Corbin tossed me a helmet, and put a wicked spin on it, which hit my hand pretty hard. I gave the customers the equipment, and Corbin and I started talking.

"Hey man, careful with those helmets. It hurt my hand."
"Justin did it to me on my very first day."
"What, he farted?"
"No! You're saying that wasn't you?"

What just happened is that we had both simultaneously gained a whiff of the most unearthly and unnatural thing I have ever smelled. It was like breathing in the bowels of a portapotty with a rotting corpse in the bottom through a siphon. As my coworker said, "Shit that had been cooking outside for days", where "shit" is a vague definition of just the crappiest bunch of crap ever conceived. Our first reaction was to find the unfortunate source of this curse on our small box. Obviously, we tried linking it to the bathroom literally just a door away, but that's where the smell stopped. We kept smelling around, and figured it was best to wait until the "policeman" left the bathroom until we started to search.

The "policeman" opened that door, eventually.
Oh, how I wish smell was a physical object.

The bathroom door opened. I went in to trace the smell, and reacting to its severity, I bolted back into the customer service box. Or I would have, but Corbin was standing next to the door, so I simply rammed into the door, and in turn, him. Our cage overflowed with this incomprehensible stench. I grabbed the nearest Lysol can as well as a lost bottle of Old Spice, and Corbin ran into the closet to get a seemingly PEZ-scented air-freshener. We burst into that room and unloaded. Scented particles flew everywhere. We did everything we could to create a clean/sexy/sugary field of magic smells in order to, even if for a few minutes, block this mess of who-knows-what. However, it was in vain; a tidal wave of odors completely broke the barrier, and this monstrosity of manly death candy was formed. We opened windows, and aired out as much as we could. That got rid of about 60% of the smell. Its source was still yet to be found.

Corbin was brave enough to look. "Matt, come in here!" "No! Just tell me what it is!" "COME. IN. HERE." Curiosity was the only driving emotion at this point. I slowly slid in, holding my breath.

A piece of feces was smeared on the edge of the trash can's plastic lining.

We did a freakin' pirouette off the handle.

We flipped out for a good 5 minutes. Then I stepped up, and chose that SOMETHING had to be done about this. I went to the garage, and found a nice extended grabber. PERFECT. I went back to the bathroom and attempted to lift the lining out of the trash can. Didn't work, because some genius tied off the bag so that it'd stay in the bucket easier. Garage time again. I found a pair of wire cutters. Technically, I found only one object called "wire cutters", but English forces me to imply that such instruments come in "sets" or "pairs". I cut the plastic lining, rendering the knot useless. After many attempts of grabbing and steppings-on, the bag left its plastic chamber. "Corbin, come with me to the dumpster." "Why?" "I need you to open it for me." "Ok."

We ran.We booked that spawn of Satan over to the parking lot. I was careful to not let go of the bag. Corbin opened the dumpster. I shook the bag off of the grabber. It wouldn't come off. "GO BACK TO HELL FROM WHENCE YOU CAME!" (yes, I did say that) A few shakes later, it fell. It fell into the dark chasm where it would stay until it was left, alone, in a landfill.

Corbin and I took every moment we could to do outdoor activities for the next couple of hours to vent out the bad air. We could feel it sticking to our lungs, poisoning us slowly.

By the end of the day, the smell lingered, faintly, like a ghost who wanted revenge.