Wednesday, June 04, 2008

I can admit it when I'm wrong

Not too long ago, while conducting some interviews at the scene of a fire, I told a coworker that apparently one sure way to get the pervasive urine smell out of a nursing home was to set fire to it.

Today I stood in a soot-blackened room for a couple of hours while other investigators took pictures. After a while I noticed a little something extra coming through the lingering smell of stale smoke and charred wood. Something pungent, not the burned smell I'd gotten used to. Then I saw a nearly full plastic male urinal still sitting, blackened but otherwise undisturbed, on a shelf on the opposite wall.


My initial observation regarding the relative strengths of fire damage versus nursing home urine smell had been wrong, and I'm man enough to admit it.


13 comments:

Distributorcap said...

did it still have the smelly wax things used as a deordorant in it?

SkylersDad said...

Nursing home urine smell should be classified as a WMD.

Joe said...

DC, it was one of the little handheld bed models, the ones that look like a plastic milk bottle with a handle on the side.

Skylersdad, you know what I'm talking about then, don't you?

Barbara Bruederlin said...

Pee wins in the end! Who knew?

Freida Bee said...

Yes, Barbara and DCap, in the hierarchy akin to rock, paper, scissors urine trumps fire. Fire trumps those smelly urinal biscuits, and they trump urine.

Mnmom said...

I think nursing homes bring in extra urine smell in the form of sprays and potpourri. It's the only explanation - old people just don't PEE that MUCH!

Dr. Monkey Von Monkerstein said...

We all love a man who can admit his mistakes.

Anonymous said...

Well, hells bells, I guess I'll stop trying to light the litter boxes on fire then. Unless of course nursing home urine is a stronger strain of urine.

justacoolcat said...

This is wrong for so many reasons.

Writeprocrastinator said...

And I thought the week (?) old Starbuck's frappucino that I discovered last night at one of my work areas by some **** was bad. The foam somehow was mostly intact, but the coffee was moldy from bottom up.

You win...I guess?

Danny Tagalog said...

It is very wrong, but hilarious! I swear a new road build near out apartment has retained the smell of cat piss from a long gone, and well-missed, pack of strays. Bring back the cats, take away the piss.

Katie Schwartz said...

So deeply wrong and so totally hilar squared.

Johnny Yen said...

So when it all ends, it'll be the cockroaches and urine bottles left, won't it. What will the aliens anthropogists who study our remains think?