As I went to work this morning the air was nice and cool for a change. The only thing marring it was a faint smoky scent to the air. There is a fire somewhere, I am not sure if it was the one burning in Osteen, or if I am actually catching the scent of that giant dump mountain that is on fire in orange city. Probably the dump fire. I actually want to drive over and see it, I bet it would be a pretty amazing sight at night, a giant mount of garbage smoldering away. I bet it looks like Mt. Doom.
http://www.wftv.com/2006/0814/9673505_240X180.jpg
Actually, I am surprised that dumps do not catch on fire more often. At the one I go to there are vent sticking out of the earth bellowing out methane gas. I have actually seen one of them alit before, although it was daylight and it was hard to see the flame. Organic materials decaying actually generates quite a bit of heat. Back after the hurricanes blew through and they were cleaning up they had to be careful that the big piles of fresh mulch did not spontaneously combust. I experienced this sort of heat first hand once. My sister had gotten a big pile of free mulch dumped in her yard. It had come from a tree that had been cut down and mulched that day. When I went over to help her spread it I stuck my hands deep into the mulch pile. It was wet and hot. You could actually feel the heat inside of the material decomposing. When I turned over a shovel full steam rose into the air.
So, I could smell that this morning. A slightly smoky smell that was really not unpleasant. It made me think of autumn. But then I passed the water reclamation plant and the foul odor of human shit wafted into my truck. I had to pull my shirt over my nose. It was really bad today, I do not know if the wind was blowing just right or if it was just a particularly stinky day at the shit plant.
I often wonder about the hospital directly next door to the shit plant. Do they have to smell it all the time? Do they wheel out bald and dying cancer patients for a little fresh air, and then leave them outside, slumped over and taking in deep snootfuls of the odor of human excrement? Seems to me that would be a bit of a bummer.
Speaking of bummer, I think my fridge post the other day angered the refrigerator gods. I got home last night and both my freezer and fridge door were open. Not wide open, just a crack. But that was enough. All the food in it went bad; all the food in the freezer was defrosted and warm to the touch. I was pissed off. True, I did not have a LOT of food in there, but it still annoyed me. I hauled out a garbage bag and dumped out everything in the fridge. I shudder to think what my electric bill is going to be like next month.
It gets hot in my house during the day. I do not have the a/c on because no one is home except cats, and I am not one of those weirdoes's who is going to run the A/C to keep the cats happy. Besides, they like it hot. When I got home last night it was 92 in my living room. Usually I program the window a/c unit to fire up a couple of hours before I get home, but I forgot to set it on Monday. So it was hot enough in the house to spoil all my food. It spoiled the big hunk of meat I was going to have for dinner; it spoiled some strawberries I had in the freezer for wine-making purposes.
I still do not know how it opened. The most obvious reason is I myself left it open. Although it would surprise me that I managed to leave both doors open. Someone suggested cats, but even if they suddenly developed the brain power to open fridge doors, they would have to have jumped on each other and piled up three high to open the freezer door.
Oh well, now that the fridge is empty it will give me a good reason to scrub it out. It's getting to be a little icky in there, developing that layer of general food grime. You really do not notice it until everything is out of it.
2026 Update
Dialing back to 2006, where the dump smolders like Mt. Doom and the fridge gods have claimed his strawberries.
Of course Ed wanted to drive over and watch a burning garbage mountain. In 2006 that was a free evening activity, a local Mount Doom with a faint autumn-smoke cologne. Today, the same impulse would get you a reverse-911 alert, a drone shot on the news, and a dozen people live-streaming it while arguing about whether the government was hiding something. The rest of the sensory experience has been rebranded too: the “shit plant” is now a “resource recovery facility” that promises “biosolids management,” which is exactly the kind of modern luxury language that makes me want to open every window near a hospital just to air out the euphemism. And the refrigerator gods? In 2006 Ed forgot to set a window AC unit, came home to 92 degrees, and lost a hunk of meat and some wine strawberries. In 2026 the refrigerator would text him a temperature graph, the thermostat would be an app on his phone, and the cat would be starring in a live pet-cam broadcast while three services offered to deliver replacement groceries. None of that would save the strawberries. It would just give the fridge gods more witnesses.
“2006 Ed, after the refrigerator gods punished your hubris by opening both doors and ruining your wine strawberries, did you ever consider that maybe they were just bored and wanted you to drive over to the flaming dump mountain instead?” — Beelzebubba the Third
2006 Ed: Well, Beelzebubba, that's a droll thought, I'll give you that. Maybe the refrigerator gods weren't punishing me so much as nudging me toward a field trip, like some cosmic hint to go see the flaming dump mountain. And honestly? I still kind of want to. I picture it glowing orange at night, all that garbage smoldering like Mt. Doom, and me standing there with a soda, feeling like I'm in a bad fantasy movie. But then I remember the smell this morning—that faint smoky autumn thing turning into the water reclamation plant’s finest—and I think, yeah, maybe the gods were just bored and wanted a laugh. They cost me a hunk of meat and some wine strawberries, though. That’s a heck of a price for entertainment. I’ll probably still drive over there one night, just to see. But I’m closing the fridge very carefully from now on, just in case.
