Dumpster Fruit

I was not happy.

Would you be happy? Put yourself in my shoes, coming home from a long day slaving over a hot Erlenmeyer to a house that smells like rotting garbage.

Where the hell is that awful smell coming from?

Is it the trash can? No. Did one of the fuzzy bastards decide that the couch lacked eau de cat piss? No, thank goodness.

I was getting desperate. Did an orange roll under the couch? Did I leave chicken skin in the sink? Did I contract with Waste Management for an auxiliary landfill site in my sleep? No, no, and no.

Let's back up a little bit, here.

My fiance has been in China for the past six months, and before she went, she asked if there was any unusual food that I wanted mailed back.

"Well," I said, "I've always wanted to try some durian."

Let's see how the internet describes the durian.

Quoth Wikipedia:

The edible flesh emits a distinctive odour, strong and penetrating even when the husk is intact. Some people regard the durian as fragrant; others find the aroma overpowering and offensive. The smell evokes reactions from deep appreciation to intense disgust. The odour has led to the fruit's banishment from certain hotels and public transportation in southeast Asia.

Typical Wikipedia - a wishy-washy, useless description. Some call it fragrant, some call it disgusting. I'm sure that the odor is just delightful, evoking both the deep appreciation of scores of Wikipedians and an official banishment by governments of some Asian nations.

Let's turn to youtube for a less sanitized reaction to the odor of the durian.

Let's turn to bizarre food expert, Andrew Zimmerman. For those of you without cable, this is a man whose job it is sit down to a refreshing bowl of sheep brains.

The British perspective on the fruit is similar.

Imagine my glee when I received a package from China no more than three days ago.

What's that in the back there?

Durian biscuits!

Upon opening the package, I could practically feel the aroma of the durian slowly enveloping my head.

The rich and unmistakable aroma of damp, aged garbage. If this is how the biscuits smell, I can only imagine how terrible the fresh fruit would be.

Yep, wet garbage. Similar, in fact, to the odor which has my living room in its stranglehold.

But... I put those in a plastic bag.

A bag which is now on the floor.

Torn open.

Stupid cats.